Looking for simple animation SW

Hey, don’t know where else to ask, so…

I’m looking for SW that will allow me to make simple animations, basically moving geometric shapes on a fixed background. Imagine I were diagramming, say, football plays with X’s and O’s, and wanted to use the animation to show how the play would work “live” (along with some explanatory text); that’s not the application, but the idea is similar.

Any ideas? Ultimately I’d like to turn the animations into streaming video, but one step at a time…

This is the simplest thing I know of for what you are asking: http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/