Free Animated GIFs to Motivate Your Learners

This week’s eLearning Challenge on the Articulate forums was to create an animated GIF image file. There was a further requirement that it be a “reaction” shot–the kind of thing you see all over the internet these days. I decided rather than using goofy footage from a popular film or television show (which can introduce all sorts of rights issues), I would create a few quick animated GIFs that were motivational, and could be used safely in a business’s eLearning project without (a) fear of offending anyone or (b) fear of legal action.

Of course, then I needed to fill the gap between knowing what I wanted to do and knowing how to do it. I’ve never created an animated GIF before. I figured it would be great if I could leverage some of the cool animations that come built into Apple’s Keynote software, and simply capture something quick in animated GIF format. (Of course I could have taken the same approach with PowerPoint, but I like the animations better in Keynote–now if only Articulate Storyline could import from Keynote!!) A quick Google search later, I learned about a free program available from the Mac App Store called GIFGrabber. The reviews were great, so I downloaded it and gave it a test drive.

Turns out, while the features are very limited, it was as easy to use as advertised.  I simply added my text to a slide, chose Keynote animations, then used GIFGrabber to capture the animations playing.  I didn’t have much time, so I simply created three motivational messages, and used the same fun animations for each.  Between the font and animation options, the possibilities are almost endless.

I also learned that when posting animated GIFs online, you need to post them at full size in order for them to play.  WordPress was eager to downsize them, but I quickly realized that was stopping the animation.

I’m sure with some playing around I could reduce the file size, etc.  But for now, here they are.  If you like them, feel free to download and use them in your own eLearning projects.

Enjoy!

Great Job!!

Well Done!!

Congrats! You win!!