Presentation Title Goes Here

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Bioinformatics in Motion Steffen Heber,
NCSU Leif Saul, CU-Boulder
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Overview

• Background about Animations
• The Bioinformatics in Motion Project
• Conclusions and Future Developments

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Educational Animations are Popular!
Algorithm animation in Computer Science
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Other Life Science Animations

• Biology in motion http//biologyinmotion.com/
• Biology Animation Library http//www.dnalc.org/dd
  nalc/resources/animations.html
• HHMIs Biointeractive Virtual Labs
  http//www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/vlabs/
• Science Animations, Movies Interactive Tutorial
  Links http//science.nhmccd.edu/BioL/animatio.htm
  
• Geospiza, Inc. Education http//www.geospiza.com/
  outreach/
• Virtual Cell Animation Collection
  http//vcell.ndsu.nodak.edu/animations/
• DNA Microarray Methodology Flash Animation
  http//www.bio.davidson.edu/Courses/genomics/chip
  /chip.html
• Also, often used in software demos, tutorials,
  and webinars

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Common Knowledge?

• Educational Animations can
• directly show changes in form, position, and time
• increase student interest and motivation
• help students to understand and remember
  information

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Student Response
Do you feel that algorithm visualization/animation
helped you to learn how algorithms work?

• I used them to study for the final
• yes, to practice how the algorithm works
• it helped me to understand, and stay awake
• they helped to make the lecture interesting
• fun stuff!
• probably not, too time consuming

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Are Animations Effective?

• Just watching does not improve learning

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How We Learn from Animations

• Two main information processing channelsvisual
  and auditory
• Learning active processing in memory
• Limited capacity for info processing

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What Makes a Good Animation?

• Use research based design principles
• Present animation and narration simultaneously
• Avoid identical streams of printed and spoken
  words
• Use narration in conversational style
• Focus on interactive activities

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Bioinformatics in Motion

• Develop Flash Animation Modules for undergraduate
  students. Topics
• Sequence Alignment
• Motif Finding/Discovery
• Database Search BLAST
• Genome Rearrangements
• Fragment Assembly
• Hidden Markov Models
• Animations http//statgen.ncsu.edu/slse/animation
  s/

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Workflow

• Text storyboard
• Illustrated with static Flash images
• Images developed into animations
• A similar approach as used by PIXAR

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Why Flash?

• Flash - Benefits include
• Small file size
• Plug-in widely distributed
• Object-oriented programming (Actionscript 3)?
• Visual authoring tools
• Animated programmatically
• Static images placed on stage
• Transitions encoded in XML
• Animations generated at runtime

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Project Features

• Static images
• Cartoons / metaphors
• Animations
• Spoken narration
• Interactivity
• User controls delivery
• Instructor controls delivery

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Project Features

• Static images
• Cartoons / metaphors
• Animations
• Spoken narration
• Interactivity
• User controls delivery
• Instructor controls delivery
• Other resources

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User Controls Delivery

• Playback controls
• Voice vs. text narration
• Liquid interface adjusts to screen size
• User feedback
• Please send us feedback!

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Types of Animation Used

• Changes in size, position, etc.
• Cartoons / metaphors
• Visual effects / enhancements
• Computed

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Types of Interactivity Used

• Quiz
• Exploration / experiment
• Game-like (user seeks an optimum)?

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Some Design Dilemmas

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Conclusions Animations

• are fun!
• they increase attention and enthusiasm
• address different learning styles
• support teachers, distance education
  independent student learning
• work best if interactive
• in Flash are time-consuming to develop

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Future Areas of Development

• What material is best taught via animations?
• How to package and integrate animations into
  class/html documents?
• Can animations adapt to different student needs?

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Acknowledgments

• Benjamin Wheeler, NCSU

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Questions?
Animations http//statgen.ncsu.edu/slse/animation
s/