It’s time for upgrades, and a Poll

It looks like it’s time to open up the wallet and start purchasing software upgrades. In the past couple of weeks two important eLearning software upgrades have hit the virtual streets:

• Adobe CS4 came out this week
• Articulate released the Studio 09 update to all their tools a couple of weeks ago

Tools are constantly going through upgrade cycles, but these are two of the biggest names in the eLearning development tool market, so they caught my attention.

Adobe CS4

This is a huge upgrade, and the first time Adobe has released a unified upgrade for all the Adobe and former Macromedia products. They’ve also changed the bundles – thank you Adobe. The CS4 Web Premium bundle now includes:

• Dreamweaver CS4
• Flash CS4 Professional
• Photoshop CS4 Extended
• Illustrator CS4
• Fireworks CS4
• Acrobat 9 Pro
• Soundbooth CS4
• Contribute CS4
• Adobe Bridge CS4
• Adobe Device Central CS4
• Version Cue CS4

The upgrade from most CS3 bundles is $599, even the old Web Standard which did not include Soundbooth, Photoshop or Illustrator. I think Adobe has finally gotten their bundles right making the new CS4 Web Premium bundle an essential upgrade for eLearning developers. I will be upgrading my license at work as soon as possible. The full version is $1699 if anyone wants to buy me an early Christmas present for personal use.

Articulate Studio 09

Articulate Presenter is arguably the most popular PowerPoint to Flash conversion tool available. That’s no fluke, the tool works well and streamlines development. With the right hacking, you can accomplish a lot with Presenter and make it do things it wasn’t designed to do. It’s also an easy way to create Flash animations from slides. I’ve used it for several months and haven’t been disappointed.

Studio 09 Standard includes Presenter, Quizmaker and Video Encoder. The Professional version adds Engage. I downloaded Studio 09, but haven’t tried the new Presenter yet. There were a few quirks and bugs in the old version of Presenter that I hope are fixed. When I have time, I’ll publish some courses and let you know what I think.

For Studio 09, Articualte added Articulate Video Encoder ’09. This tool converts video files to FLV for inclusion in courses. I did take some time to test out this tool and can’t say I was overly impressed. If you don’t already have the Flash Video Encoder (which comes with Flash) then this tool will be useful. It works fine, I just prefer Flash Video Encoder. One feature that Articulate Video Encoder includes that the Flash encoder doesn’t is the ability to record your webcam and convert the file to FLV. I didn’t test this feature, and probably won’t use it. I wouldn’t buy this product as a stand alone purchase, especially for $149, but it’s a nice addition to the Studio 09 bundle, especially for people who don’t have Flash.

Poll

WordPress also added a new tool recently – Polling. Let’s give it a try and see how it works.

Get Your eLearning in Gear

In writing my blog post earlier this week I saw a blurb in the WordPress control panel about Gears with a link to the WordPress blog. I like bike riding, so the word “gears” got my attention and I followed the link. WordPress is now using Gears to speed up web site load times.

What is Gears? It’s a plug-in and API developed by Google that’s designed to speed up web site load times by caching content on your local computer. It’s sort of a browser cache, but is site specific and doesn’t get erased when the normal cache gets full. It allows web sites to store elements on your computer for quick display when you visit the site. These elements are updated only when necessary. It’s ideal for interface elements, CSS files, and Javascript files.

How do you use Gears? First, the web site has to be using Gears. WordPress is one such site. There is a server side component that manages the offline elements.  As a web surfer, you have to install the Gears plug-in. There are Mac, Windows, and Linux versions for IE and Firefox. Once you install the plug-in the site will ask you if you want to allow it to store content on your computer. You can choose which Gears enabled sites are allowed to store content on your computer and can manage the list of allowed sites from the Google Gears Settings. When I allowed WordPress to use Gears it downloaded 212 items to my local computer that use about 1.75 MB of space. I’m on a LAN with a fast connection, so the download was quick.

What about eLearning and Gears? The most obvious answer is load time. If you produce a lot of courseware that people access either on your LAN or remotely from home, then you can use Gears to download interface elements so they don’t have to load for every course every time. You can also download the interface elements for your LMS.

But interface elements for standard eLearning courseware is the low hanging fruit. What about mobile learning, or learning on-demand? You can cache templates for learning objects so only the content needs to download. A lot of content these days is XML that is rendered by a browser or in Flash. The display logic in Javascript or SWFs can be stored locally and not downloaded every time a page loads. Gears allows you to push updates to offline content, so you don’t have to worry about the local copies being out of date.

Gears is still in its infancy (the current version is 0.3.24.3 as of this posting) with many more ideas and features to come.   One thing I’d really like to see is a Gears implementation of SCORM for offline learning, especially on mobile devices. The Gears web site has examples of offline search engines, secure financial data applications, and applications that use Flex and Gears.  At this point, the future is wide open for Gears and eLearning. I haven’t jumped into Gears too deeply yet, but I get the feeling it’s far more than a glorified cache and could have a huge impact on eLearning.

You can get Gears and learn more at http://gears.google.com, or read the FAQ. There’s are also a developer site with information on the API.

Why Bother with Instructional Design?

This week I had a revelation: My instructional design doesn’t matter. Then I read the Big Question over at the Learning Circuits blog:

For a given project, how do you determine if, when and how much an instructional designer and instructional design is needed?

I read several of the responses and the blog post by Cammy Bean that inspired the question. I think I like Jay Cross’s response the best, probably because it’s short and obvious. (People often don’t see the obvious). My short answer is enough to meet the objectives of the course. For eLearning I think careful planning is required, especially for self-paced courses. For classroom training, and maybe even live online training, almost no ID is needed. Huh? An instructional designer saying you don’t need instructional design? Yep, you need course developers not instructional designers.

In the past year I’ve spent a lot of time working on instructor-led training for both in-person classes and live online classes. What I’ve found is that no matter how much work I do two things are true:

• The instructor will always do things their way.
• Students don’t care about instructional design.

The instructor will always do things their way. The trainers I work with are outstanding, both as trainers and as technical experts. They know the product and have years of experience training. They will always, for any given class, adjust the course as necessary for the students that show up that day. The activities I labored over may not be done in a class and the instructor may improvise and create activities on the fly. In other words, no matter how much I plan and design there is no guarantee it will be used in class.

Will this impact learning? Probably, but the students don’t seem to notice because they don’t know what they are missing. Sure, there are pages and slides that were skipped or taught in a different sequence, but they came to class knowing nothing and left with their heads full of stuff. Let’s not debate if it was the right stuff; stuff is stuff.

Students don’t care about instructional design. All they care about is having a good instructor and doing some exercises that are relevant to their world of work. They also like not being at their real job for a few days, and the free coffee and pastries go a long way toward high scores on the course evaluation form (smile sheet). They want the course materials to be accurate so when they do an exercise it works. They also want a copy of the slides, except the slides that say “Objectives” or “Course Goals”. Never mind that the book has all the information they need to accomplish the objectives (and then some), they want the slides.

So a course developer is all you need. Someone to make slides with pretty graphics, write exercises (based on what the instructors want), and produce student handouts. Some planning is needed, but only so at a high level things look like they are in order. For example, if you’re training on how to bake a cake you want to make sure the oven is on before you put the cake in to bake. Simple, obvious stuff. The course developer should test the exercises to make sure they work, even if the instructor skips the previous exercise.

Instructional design for instructor led training is over rated. Good instructors are all you really need. eLearning, now that’s a totally different animal. As instructional designer you get to exercise your complete control and make sure learners get the what they need in the way you’ve determined is best. What about learner control ? That just means making sure they can read the text instead of listening to the narration.

Just remember, people might actually learn in spite of instruction.

DevLearn 2007 Expo

Wednesday I took a (long) drive to San Jose to check out the DevLearn 2007 Expo. I did not attend the conference because the registration fee was a little high for my non-existent budget, but figured the Expo would be a good opportunity to check out the latest new tools. Truth be told, the size of the expo was disappointing. It was much smaller than I expected in terms of the number of booths. It also seemed the conference didn’t have a lot of attendees because every time I walked by a session room they seemed mostly empty.

The small expo size and small number of people did allow me time to really talk with some vendors about their products in depth. I talked with a dozen or so vendors, but only a few really impressed me, with both their product and professionalism. Most did not impress me, and some were actually rude. I don’t want to dwell on those, but I’ll just say that two of the biggest names in eLearning tools were the most unprofessional and unimpressive companies I talked with.

Rapid Intake

The company that impressed me most was Rapid Intake. A few months ago I gave Flashform a negative review. Garin Hess, Rapid Intake’s CEO, contacted me and did a personal demo of Flashform. I changed my mind about the product and wrote a new review of Flashform. Garin was at DevLearn and spent very long time with me talking about the next evolution of Flashform and even demoed the beta version for me. I can’t say much about it now, but it is cool. Very cool. For the first time (maybe ever) I have seen an authoring tool that I’m genuinely excited about. I wish I could say more and tell you all the awesome features, but Garin swore me to secrecy until they are ready for release. What the iPod did for music this new product may do for eLearning development. It really is that cool. Remember when Authorware was the tool? This may be next. This is one tool worth your attention. Keep an eye out for it.

Also, the folks at Rapid Intake deserve kudos. I’m just a guy that has a blog, but they treated me with the utmost respect and truly valued my opinion. Rapid Intake actually listens to the people in their target market. Other vendors were reluctant to get out of their chair to hand me brochure and give me their robotic sales pitch, but Garin and his co-workers had an actual two-way conversation with me.

Exceptional Software Strategies

Who’s Exceptional Software? I’d never heard of them, but that’s normal for a convention expo, half the companies I’ve never heard of. Exceptional Software is software development company with a division that focuses on eLearning. What made them standout was their game, Never Rest. Never Rest is an Instructional Alternate Reality Game (I-ARG). This game takes scenario based learning to the next level by making it realistic – learners actually do things in the game that they do on the job. “Game” probably isn’t the best word to describe it since it really is training, but cool like games.

MediaEdge (the division of Exceptional Software that developed the I-ARG) has developed a Flex based platform for deploying the training that allows instructors complete control over the environment. I haven’t played with a demo myself, but what they showed was impressive. Well thought out, professionally designed, and very engaging. From what I saw they’ve found the sweet spot where games and training mix. The development team was a combination of Instructional Designers and Game Developers and the strengths of both show in the final product.

It was refreshing to see this platform and talk with them because it was totally different than anything else I saw. Most tools are focused on the traditional development paradigms or try to sell you on “rapid development”. Never Rest is really about making something realistic, engaging, and truly interactive -real learning based on real world scenarios. You learn by doing the job you’re being trained for. I’m going to spend some time with Never Rest and researching I-ARGs because it looks fun.

Summary

There were a few other companies and products that I need to look into a little more before blogging about them. There were also plenty of LMS vendors there, but none had anything that really jumped out at me. Same old LMS stuff I’ve seen before, just with a UI face lift.

If you’re looking something to get you excited about eLearning, make some time to look into both Flashform and Never Rest. They are developing new products that will hopefully breathe some new life into the eLearning development tools marketplace.

Five Ways For Projects to Fail

I just read a great article from Inc.com on why software development projects fail, or as the front page of their web site says “What can a walrus teach you about business?” The article gives five common mistakes that will doom any development project. It’s a relatively short article that definitely holds true for eLearning development. For those of you who haven’t realized it yet, eLearning development is software development. We may not all program in C++ or Java, but our development has a lot in common with traditional software development. If you are a project manager you owe it to your team to read the article.

I think my favorite mistake is number 3 in the article, negotiating a deadline. This is where the walrus teaches us a lesson. No, I’m not going to steal the author’s thunder, you’ll have to read the article to find out about the walrus. I’ll just say, I am the walrus. (OK, that really isn’t funny, but how could I resist?) The reason I like this mistake is because it is absolutely true. I hate giving solid dates for development projects because they are never accurate. Good estimates are possible, but only after detailed requirements and specifications have been drawn up and an experienced developer spends a lot of time mapping out the development effort. That process in and of itself will take time. Even then, stuff always happens that derails development.

In a past job I was asked why a development project would take months. I said because it takes months. Even if your deadline is next week, people can only work so fast. The only way to speed up the process is to hire more people. If your deadline is a few weeks and you only have one developer, I can tell you now the deadline will slip. My theory is that unless you have done development (a lot of development), you cannot estimate development time. Even basing your estimates on past projects probably won’t get you in the ballpark. Maybe the same zip code as the ballpark, or the parking lot, but not in the ballpark.

My favorite training related scenario goes something like this. A new course has been thought up by someone who is not a training developer, let’s say it’s a product manager. That PM says we need a training course so customers can learn how to use the new iWidget. The course needs to be a two-day course. It needs to be done next month because a customer will be testing the iWidget and we need to train them as part of the test. Said PM then asks me if I can get the course done. I say “of course”. The next time I’m asked I’ll tell the PM about the walrus.

KnowledgePlanet Firefly Review

A few months ago I started a series of posts reviewing various eLearning development tools. Life and work intervened, so I haven’t been very diligent about getting the reviews out. I’ve got several posts started about various topics like mobile learning, podcasting, and personal learning environments, but I want to finish up some of the reviews first.

When I started evaluating tools, Firefly topped my list because I really needed a good simulation tool. Of all the tools and companies I looked into, KnowledgePlanet impressed me the most. They were one of the few companies that really seems to understand the instructional development process and the unique challenges of developing online training. They understand that developing online training is not just about converting classroom training or shoveling PowerPoint onto an LMS. They understand eLearning developers their particular needs. They have developed tools specifically for creating effective online training that have their foundations in instructional design, not programming. The tools didn’t always have all the features I wanted or needed, but I felt at the core, they understood online training.

KnowledgePlanet has two tools that I looked into seriously: Firefly Simulation Developer and Firefly Publisher. If I had my choice and money was no object, I would buy their products. However, KnowledgePlanet’s tools are very expensive, so I probably won’t purchase them at this time. I wish I could. I like the products, and the people I talked to. They were very helpful and informative without be overly “salesy” or pushy.

Firefly Publisher

I attended a webinar for this product, so did not try it myself. Publisher is a server-based development tool that requires no installation on the client computer. It is entirely web-based. I love web-based applications. I hate software licensing based on an installation. I loathe having to drag my laptop home from work because that is were my apps are installed. Web based applications offer several distinct advantages over traditional install-based apps, especially if your organization has very strict IT policies. For me it means the data is backed-up and if my laptop dies or get stolen (which just happened at my workplace), my projects are not lost.

Firefly Publisher was specifically designed for team based authoring, without all the overhead of a full-blown LCMS. It includes a lot of useful team based tools, like creating tasks and workflow management, but doesn’t burden you with a complex administration scheme or interface. It is designed for people who actually create eLearning, not people who manage it or administer it.

In the authoring tool market, there are great tools for individual developers and some good enterprise wide LCMS tools, but nothing in the middle. Firefly is that product in the middle. Small to medium sized organizations can really benefit from Firefly Publisher. The authoring environment is flexible and simple enough for novices, but robust enough for experienced developers.

Some of the features I particularly liked:

• SME Review – You can have people review courses, but you don’t need a license for them. You only need a license for developers.
• Task Management – A simple tool for adding tasks to screens, like “Replace graphic” or “redo audio”. It’s basically a “To Do” list for each screen, something I maintain manually now. You can run a report for an entire project to get the global picture.
• Repository – All assets (text, audio, interactions) are stored in a media repository and can be reused.
• Remote linking for assets – You don’t have store them in the library, you can point to a URL.
• HTML Editing – Allows you to edit HTML, and won’t step on it. You can add HTML to the theme, so it’s available on every page.

The version I looked at didn’t have a PowerPoint import, but it was in development. It also didn’t support CSS, but you could put it in the HTML for a theme and it would work. So, even though the software had a gap (in my opinion), there was a simple work around.

My bottom line – I want this tool.

Since this post is getting long, I’ll talk about Firefly Simulation developer in the next blog post.

As always, please let me know if you questions, comments, or a different opinion.

Relearning Flash

In the past couple of weeks I’ve been diving back into Flash after a little hiatus to work on classroom training. It was a longer hiatus than I would have liked, and included getting the CS3 upgrade to the most current version of Flash. I hadn’t looked into ActionScript 3.0 until I opened the program to start some new projects. I did do some work in AS 2.0 in the past few months, but nothing new. When I started a new project, I of course targeted ActionScript 3.0. ActionScript 3.0 is a pretty radical shift, much more so than I had anticipated. I feel like I’m going back to square one learning ActionScript.

My programming background is not that deep. I learned web programming languages out of necessity. I started using Flash at around version 4 and just kept up over the years. ActionScript 2.0 was great because it was just like JavaScript. I picked it pretty easily and even started creating objects when necessary. I was comfortable and confident with Flash and felt like I could pretty much do whatever I needed to with ActionScript. What I didn’t know, I could learn because I understood how things worked. Now, I’m completely lost.

ActionScript 3.0 kind of scares me. I’m not computer science major with years of programming experience. I’m an eLearning developer trying to find tools that will help me create training products. Now, Flash is more of a programming tool than a creative tool. For a lot of people I’m sure the change was welcome and makes their lives easier. For folks like me, it’s huge barrier to productivity. It sets me back a few weeks (maybe more) because now I have to go and learn something new while trying to get projects done. In a small training group where I am the Instructional Designer, Flash Programmer, and Graphic Designer, Project Manager, and any other job title you want throw into the mix, taking time to learn a program I thought I knew is a bitter pill to swallow. Now I have to explain to my manger (who hired me in part because I knew Flash) that I need to take a break from projects to learn Flash.

Adobe hasn’t left people completely out in the cold. You can still work with ActionScript 2.0 in Flash 9. That’s what I ended up doing for my recent project. Deadlines sometimes don’t allow for on the job training. If you have a Flash file written in ActionScript 2.0 and want to convert it to 3.0, you’re out of luck. There doesn’t seem to be an easy way. Saving As doesn’t work. The languages are too different.

At this point, I don’t plan on going back and redoing any of my old projects. I’ll learn AS3 and move on. My primary concern is how SWF output from tools like Articulate Presenter and Viewlet Builder will work with AS3 files. The Flash Help file says you can load AS2 SWF files, but can’t call functions or pass data. Hopefully I’m wrong about that and they will play together nicely. If they don’t, I guess we are stuck with AS2 until other vendors make updates to their products to add support for AS3.

I wonder how much upgrading to Flash 9 has cost training departments. No just the price of the upgrade, but the cost of updating courseware. I know it will cost me a lot of time, not just to learn AS3, but also to try and integrate other SWF files from other programs. Well, at least I can honestly say I never stop learning.

Classroom Training Books

So, this post has very little to do with eLearning, but it’s something I’m struggling with at work right now. What goes into the ideal classroom training book?

Right now I’m wrestling with a 350+ page book for a 3-day instructor-led class. It’s packed with a lot of really good, useful information that mostly supports the objectives. But 75% of the content is straight out of the documentation. There’s also a bunch of PowerPoint files that go along with the book. (Note: I inherited this course, I did not develop it.) The cynic in me says that nobody reads the book, they just use the pages with the exercises, and when necessary refer to relevant sections. I don’t think my assumption is too far off, based on what the instructors tell me. Between the book, PowerPoint, and other media files, this course is a huge burden to maintain.

There’s one theory that basically says “Give ‘em a print out of the PPT file and any exercises. That’s all the need. If students need to refer to something from the documentation, well then they should just use the documentation. Documentation is not training, and should not be used as such. Classroom materials shouldn’t regurgitate the docs, they should leverage the docs.” I’m leaning this direction because I think it will force students to think more about the content. If the book is small and doesn’t include every detail, students will likely take notes on what is relevant to them. That means they are processing important information instead of passively listening. It also trains them to use the documentation instead of calling tech support. It also reduces our cost while speeding up development time. Do you know how long it takes to proofread 350 pages? Too long. Instead of spending my time formatting 350 pages, I could be developing better learning interactions or exercises.

There’s another theory that says “Students are all dumb. Assume they need to be spoon fed and need everything in one place. They will be annoyed if they have to switch between electronic docs and the course book.” I like to think people are smart, until they prove otherwise. Unfortunately, too many people prove otherwise. Still, if students have to do a little more cognitive processing while in class, is that a bad thing? If they can’t manage multiple windows on a computer while referring to a printed course book, is that my concern? They must have to do that on the job, why not in class? If people struggle a little, but don’t cross the line and become annoyed, doesn’t that struggle help them learn? I tend to learn things that I have to fight with a little, and I know I’ve seen research that backs me up. Anyone with a reference, please email me. I’m too busy proofreading to do research.

I think with the next iteration of the course I’m going to completely start over – toss the entire course and rebuild it from the ground up. The course book will list objectives for each section, references to the documentation, and a high level overview of what the chapter covers with a couple of pretty graphics to illustrate a few key points. Maybe a couple of pages of content followed by exercises. No PowerPoint slides, no documentation. Just the basics. The exercises are already well written and include everything students need to accomplish the given objective. Students will get a thin book, a CD with documentation, and a pen to take notes. And many hours of hands-on practice.

Thoughts? Have you done this before? Please share your experience. If I get a trainer mutiny, I’ll let you know. Management should like the reduced cost and improved efficiency, and I’ll get to spend more time on eLearning. Everyone wins, right?

High Definition Video with Flash Player

Yesterday, Adobe made available the beta release of “Moviestar”, the code name for the latest version of the ubiquitous Flash player. This new release is clearly targeted to online entertainment as it adds support for H.264 video and AAC audio. If you’re like me, H.264 means almost nothing, but AAC sounds familiar. The short definitions: H.264 = High definition video; ACC = better audio.

H.264 Video

H.264 is basically an updated version MPEG that HD-DVD and Blu-ray use for compression. Adding this to Flash means that Flash video will start to look a lot better, and require a lot more bandwidth. If you use Flash video in your eLearning, this could be very important to you. In the near term, this probably won’t impact eLearning much. Long-term, it well greatly improve image quality of online video.

I expect all the online movie sites will start supporting this standard very quickly. Maybe not YouTube, but sites that deliver commercial content should start offering HD content delivered via Flash, I’m thinking specifically of NetFlix online viewing service. If the entertainment aspect of Flash interests you, check out Read/WriteWeb’s blog post.

AAC Audio

What is AAC, and why might it be familiar? Currently iTunes uses AAC as the default encoder when importing audio. You can choose MP3, but AAC is the default. Now Flash supports AAC, and more importantly HE AAC. I think this will have a much bigger initial impact on eLearning because it greatly improves the quality of audio, like narration, while reducing file size. In testing, AAC was percieved to have better sound quality than MP3. In my personal experience I think AAC sounds better than MP3. Both formats are lossy.

If you use a lot of audio in your eLearning, you should seriously consider switching to AAC compression. Tools like Articulate Presenter and other Flash based tools should add the option to use AAC compression in their next round of releases. With the implementation of AAC in Flash, we could see the dominance of MP3 slip.

So for now what should you do? Not much. This is still in Beta, so will have some bugs. Once it is released in a final version it will take time for people to upgrade. It will also take time for tool vendors to update their software to support the new Flash features.

Until the release is final, educate yourself about the H.264 and AAC so you can make informed decisions about updating your development practices.

Read more about Moviestar:

• http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/adobe_flash_player_moviestar_h264.php
• http://www.kaourantin.net/2007/08/what-just-happened-to-video-on-web_20.html
• http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer9/

Rapid Intake Flashform Review, Part 2

In June I reviewed Flashform, and didn’t have a lot of positive comments. As a result, Garin Hess, the CEO of Rapid Intake, got in touch with me and wanted to go over some of the features that he felt demonstrated Flashform’s strengths. After some vacation for me and eLearning DevCon for Garin, we finally got together last week to talk about Flashform.

Before I get into any specifics I want to personally thank Garin for taking the time to talk to me. He’s very passionate about Flashform and believes very strongly that it can help eLearning organizations speed up development without sacrificing instructional effectiveness. Garin was very open and honest about Flashform and even admitted they have some usability work to do. I was worried I would get the standard sale pitch, but didn’t. I just talked peer-to-peer with another eLearning professional about a tool and what makes eLearning effective. That was extremely refreshing, and speaks volumes about Garin and Rapid Intake.

Now, onto some comments about Flashform.

First, there is a new version of Flashform available. Version 2.2 is out and has some improvements over the version I reviewed. I did not download and look at the new version, but Garin did demo some features. Also, Rapid Intake is releasing a web-based version of the Flashform soon that runs entirely in a browser and adds more functionality. We didn’t get into specifics, but Rapid Intake will issue a press release with all the details. I’ve always had a soft spot for web-based tools, so I’m looking forward to seeing this new offering. He did mention they are adding an Undo function in the online version and are working on spell checker. Also, some usability issues will be addressed in the new online version. He also mentioned new interaction templates like a memory game, flash cards, and other games. In my review I gave the quiz tool low marks, so hopefully these new tools will be an improvement.

XML Based Authoring

About the current Flashform offering, Garin did explain the architecture to me which helped explain some of the behaviors I experienced. For starters, Flashform stores all content externally and uses XML to store all the references to external media. Text is the only thing stored in the XML file. It then uses a Flash swf file to pull in the XML and external content. Content and presentation are separate. In my opinion this is ideal. I strongly advocate for separation of presentation from content and favor tools that understand and take advantage of the concept. For some reason this was lost on me when I first looked at Flashform, but I stand corrected. There are many benefits to this type of architecture, but I’ll save that for another blog post. In short it makes maintenance and localization much easier.

The only caveat to this methodology is that the swf file has to be able to handle whatever is in the XML. Flashform uses a Flash swf to parse the XML and display the course. As you know, Flash is updated on a very regular basis so as a developer you really can’t be sure what version of the Flash browser plug-in your learners have. Rapid Intake decided to standardize on Flash Player 7. This is why only JPG files were supported. They could have given users the option to publish courses for higher versions of the Flash Player, but decided to make things less confusing. They sacrificed some functionality, but wanted less confusion, which is understandable. In a future Flashform release newer versions of the Flash Player will be supported.

Form Driven Authoring

Garin also explained the form-based nature of Flashform – When you develop a course, you fill in the forms which get written to the XML file for the course. With the Professional edition of Flashform you can modify the forms, or create your own. I evaluated the standard version of Flashform which does not allow you to create or modify the forms, but with the Professional edition you get all FLA files you need to build a customized rapid development tool. Once you create forms to author the content, you build a presentation template to view the content. Your organization can have forms and templates to match your needs and help standardize training across an organization.

Garin gave me a couple of examples of large corporations that did just that. They built custom forms based on their instructional model that were distributed to SMEs to author courses. Obviously you need to have an experienced Flash developer available to create and maintain custom forms, but these days that is not a real challenge. The power of Flashform is that once the forms and template are built, anyone can use the form to author a course. Rapid Intake’s goal was to build something that is easy to use, but still powerful. I still question the ease of use, but I do think Flashform has the potential to be a powerful tool.

PowePoint Conversion

Garin also explained the PowerPoint conversion tools. I wasn’t impressed the first time I looked at them, but now at least I understand the logic behind them a little better. I still don’t think they are great tools, but then I don’t think PowerPoint is really an eLearning tool.

Flashform includes two methods importing PowerPoint: Using the PowerPoint converter template or using the Flashform Screen Recorder. I’m not going to describe each in detail here, if you want to see them in action you can view the tutorial on the Rapid Intake web site. I’ll just say that if you must use PowerPoint for specific elements in an eLearning course, you will probably find one of the tools useful. I would personally go through the extra effort and either create real content screens or a Flash animation. If you need simple screen recordings for demos, you’ll probably make good use of the screen recorder.

Summary

Since I haven’t used the new version of Flashform and haven’t seen the upcoming web-based version, I’m going to let you draw your own conclusions. I will say that I like Flashform’s XML based architecture. Also, I can see how creating your forms and distributing them to content authors could really speed up development. You could get a few Professional editions for the developers and distribute the forms to content authors with the standard edition. This could save you a lot of money. I’m a Flash developer, so the concept behind Flashform is cool to me and I would probably enjoy coming up with my own templates and seeing how far I could push the tool. If I had the Professional edition.

So, I guess the only judgment I’ll make is that I would not buy the standard edition. I would insist on the Professional edition and spend the time to customize it for my needs.

Again, Thanks to Garin Hess for his time and effort.