A Quick Way to Create Animated Explanations

In my course on making and teaching with animated explanations I provide in-depth explanations of that process and why it is helpful in remembering key terms and concepts. I also provide a lot of direction on various methods for making animated explanation videos. Last week I tried a new AI tool for making animated explanation videos. That tool is the AI script generator found in SimpleShow.

SimpleShow will create an animated video for you based on some simple information that you provide to it. To make a video with SimpleShow’s AI you simply provide the words or phrases you want to have explained in a video and the intended audience for the video. SimpleShow will then generate a script and a set of animated scenes for you to review. Once you review those components, SimpleShow generates a video for you. The whole process can take less than five minutes. Here’s my video demonstration of how to use SimpleShow.

To be clear, I don’t think that the finished product that SimpleShow makes is as good as something you or your students could make if you spent a few hours developing a video on your own. Likewise, I don’t think students would learn much from letting AI do the work for them. That said, if you need a short animation created in a hurry to add to your lesson plan, SimpleShow might be the tool for you.

Next week is Geography Awareness Week. It’s my favorite non-holiday week of the year! Next week I’ll share a bunch of geography-related resources that are useful whether or not you teach geography lessons. If you want to get a head start, take a look at this playlist on my YouTube channel.