Anyone with any sense can figure out how to resize images, so I'm not going to go into it. If you are really at that basic a level, don't even think about animations yet. Go to the programs page and read through some of the tutorials at the bottom.
OK, you're still here, so you must know how to resize images, convert file types and so on. Good. Here are some tutorials on the basic effects we see a lot of requests for. If you master these, you'll be well on your way to fulfilling the dreams of graphics wanna-bes.
The basics Programs and tutorial links.
Marquee text (blinky text)
Animated objects (spinning and moving stars and so on)
Movie Clips (converting Quicktime to GIF)