Why Flash on the iPhone/iPad doesn’t solve #mLearning

by Dave Mozealous on January 27, 2010

By now you have probably heard about the release of Apple’s new toy the iPad.  One of the biggest disappointments about the device so far is that again it is an apple device that will not initially support the Adobe Flash Player, much like the iPhone/iPod Touch.

Checking Twitter for comments about “Flash” and “iPad” you find a lot of disappointment:

@invaderkong: Wait….STILL NO FUCKING FLASH…yah iPad….I think I’ll wait till google copies ya and then makes you better

@sethruffer: iPad looks incredible….but no flash????without FlashI’m skeptical.

@tvilling: No it’s not a tablet computer – it’s a giant iPod Touch that does not do webpages with Flash #ipad #Apple pls. make a tablet macbookish.

Even Engadget chimed it support with a story about it within 15 minutes of the iPad announcement concluding.

Why no Flash Player on mobile devices hurts mLearning

The news of the lack of support for Flash on the iPhone and iPad is especially important to those involved in the learning industry.  Why?  Well the vast majority of eLearning training is delivered via Flash (using tools like Flash, Captivate, Articulate), and with so many prominent mobile devices (iPhone, Blackberry, Android -yet)  that don’t support any Flash Player eLearning developers are left waiting for devices to either support the Flash player, or another delivering system for eLearning content that doesn’t rely on the Flash Player.

If you listen to the folks at Adobe they will tell you that some form of Flash is available on most mobile devices, or will soon be coming to almost all mobile devices.  Well if you believe this, I have a bridge to sell you.  I left Macromedia/Adobe 4 years ago, and at the time everyone knew that the mobile platform was going to be the future.  Mobile is the future everyone would say.  Well here we are 4 years later and nobody I know actually has a mobile device that supports the Flash player.  I could go on and on about the incompetence of the leadership at Adobe, but that isn’t the point of this post.

Why adding Flash on the iPhone/iPad doesn’t solve the mLearning problem

If Steve Jobs had announced that the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch would come with the Flash Player would the entire eLearning industry jump up and shout for joy because now mLearning would be achievable?  Unfortunately no.

Why?

Not only do most mobile devices NOT support the Flash Player, but they also don’t support Java.  Why does this matter? A big part of eLearning revolves around being able to not only VIEW content, but to also TRACK content.  Tracking is fundamental to delivering formalized eLearning training, which usually involves Learning Management Systems.  Here is the second part of the mLearning problem.  Many Learning Management Systems use client side Java (meaning Java runs in the browser) to do the actual tracking with SCORM and AICC content.

I don’t know the specific percentage of Learning Management Systems that use Java, and given that there are several hundred to a thousand different LMS vendors on the market it is difficult to get an accurate count, but I did ask a couple of SCORM experts (Tim Martin and Mike Rustici from SCORM.COM) if they had any idea how many used Java.  And the responses I got were:

  • too many (Tim)
  • few new deployments use Java, but hard to estimate the installed base of legacy SCORM implentations. (Mike)

So to Mike’s point, “few new deployments use Java,” this is good news.  Problem is that many people are stuck on older learning management systems that still do use Java.  Licensed versions of Learning Management Systems can be several hundred thousand dollars, and upgrading can either be prohibitively expensive, or difficult to manage, so organizations elect to not upgrade.

Conclusion

So my point is, even IF by some miracle the people at Adobe get the Flash Player on the iPhone/iPad it doesn’t completely solve the mLearning problem.  Without also adding Java support we still won’t have tracking.

As a note: Articulate Online is and always has been Java free.  So if the Flash Player problem is solved Articulate Online won’t have the tracking problem.

In case you are wondering, I left Adobe, I was not fired.  I own Adobe stock, and the incompetence of Adobe leadership bothers me as a stockholder in Adobe and stakeholder in the eLearning industry that relies on Flash.

{ 11 comments }

Convert #Articulate Web output to LMS output without republishing

by Dave Mozealous on January 19, 2010

This post is written in response to Deepak Saini’s questions in a comment on one of my posts.

So here is the problem: You have a bunch of Articulate presentations that you have published and uploaded to your website, and now it is your job to take all those presentations and upload them to your new LMS, but the problem is you no longer have the source presentations. How can you convert your Web published content to LMS content without republishing from Articulate Presenter?

Whenever possible, you should republish your content, doing this method ain’t going to be easy.

A couple notes:

  • Make a backup of any project that you are going to modify so that you can undo anything that breaks.
  • These instructions aren’t supported by Articulate.
  • I am assuming your are going to use SCORM 1.2. You can do the same thing for SCORM 2004, or AICC but the instructions need to be tweaked a bit.

Convert your Articulate Web content to LMS without republishing

1. Install Beyond Comapre

Using Beyond Compare will make this process a whole lot easier to understand. You can download a trial of it from the good folks at Scooter Software here.

Why do you need Beyond Compare?  We are going to publish a presentation to LMS output, and then compare those files with the files that you already have published to Web. We will then either copy over files as needed, or modify existing files to make the Web output into LMS output.

Once you have downloaded Beyond Compare install it, choosing all the default options.

2. Download your Web output

Download the entire folder of web presentation from your website to your local machine.

Note: Make sure if you are downloading via FTP that you choose “binary mode” in your FTP program.

Once you have downloaded your presentation make sure that the content plays fine before modifying anything. Then make a backup of it. If it doesn’t play after downloading likely you didn’t download in “binary mode”.

3. Publish a sample presentation for LMS

Like I mentioned earlier, we need some sample LMS content to compare to our Web content to make this work.

Note: It is important that you use the same version of Articulate Presenter to publish your sample LMS presentation as your Web presentation. Things will likely break if you follow this article using LMS output from Articulate Presenter ‘09 and Web output from Articulate Presenter 5.

Here is what you need to do:

  1. Create a blank PowerPoint presentation
  2. Select Articulate>Publish
  3. Select the LMS tab
  4. Set your Publish title to match your the Published title of your Web presentation
  5. Select your LMS type (SCORM 1.2, 2004, AICC)
  6. Publish

4. Compare your Web output to your LMS output

Now we are going to use Beyond Compare to compare the output and replace files as necessary.

Ok, this section is very difficult to explain, but very easy to show. So I created a Screenr Screencast that walks you through it.

View on Screenr

In the screencast above I neglected to show changing another line in the player.html. In the Web version of the player.html find a line that says this:
var g_bLMS = false;
set it to this:
var g_bLMS = true;
and save the file.

5. Modify the imsmanifest.xml

You are going to have to make some changes to the imsmanifest.xml file that is in your published output folder to make sure that it is valid SCORM content.

Here is what you need to do:

  1. Open the imsmanifest.xml in the Web published folder in a text editing program like notepad
  2. Navigate to the <resources> section
  3. The section should list all files that are contained in the package. So you need to list a reference for each file that is contained in the output folder. If you followed the instructions above correctly, the only files you should need to add will be in the /data/swf folder. The references should look something like this:
    <file href=”data/swf/slide7.swf”/>
    <file href=”data/swf/tb1.swf”/>
  4. After you are done adding references for all the files, Save the imsmanifest.xml

Now it is time to upload and test it in your LMS.

6. Zip up the contents of the folder and upload to your LMS

Zip up the contents (but not the folder itself) of your Web folder, and upload it to your LMS. You should be all set.

That’s it. I know this isn’t super easy, but if you don’t have any way of republishing it might be your only option.

Remember to test your content thoroughly before sending out the content to everyone.  There is a good chance things could break when following these instructions, so testing is important.

{ 3 comments }

Create a Screenr Video Podcast in 4 EASY steps

by Dave Mozealous on January 8, 2010

It’s 2010, and you are dying to do something that embraces mobile learning. Why not create a Video Podcast of all your Screenr screencasts?

Here is how you can create a Video Podcast of your Screenr screencasts in 4 easy steps.

A little background

One of the cool things about Screenr, is that you can view your Screenr Screencasts on an iPhone. Articulate’s CEO @GetAdam created this Screencast to show you what Screenr Videos look like on an iPhone:


View at Screenr

Cool, so Screenr screencasts play on an iPhone…how did we do that? Only certain video types will play on an iPhone (like MP4 for example), and will only play video up to certain dimensions (640×480). In order to provide the best video quality for both iPhone users, and normal web users Screenr creates two separate video files for each screencast you create. A smaller 640×480 video that is optimized for the iPhone, and a larger full resolution video that matches your recording dimensions for web users.

When we build our Video Podcast feed we are going to link to the iPhone version of your Screencast to make sure that it will play nicely on an iPhone and iPod Touch.

Step 1: Install some tools

You need a few tools to follow these steps. Go ahead and install them now if you don’t have them.

Step 2: Get the video links

We need to get the links to the iPhone version of the MP4s. In order to get the iPhone version of the MP4’s you will need to trick Screenr into thinking your Firefox browser is an MP4.

Here is how you can do that:

  1. Install the User Agent Switcher Add-On in Firefox if you haven’t already.
  2. Select Tools
  3. Select Default User Agent > iPhone 3.0
  4. Go to Screenr.com
  5. Find the video you are looking to include in your Podcast
  6. Select View > Page Source to view the HTML (this will help us find the link)
  7. Find the <video> tag..hint, it should look something like this:
    <video width=”290″ height=”161″ poster=”http://c0203141.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/81e750d1-56dd-4e55-97e0-72f3cb445e79_thumb.jpg” controls=”controls”>
    <source src=”http://c0203291.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/81e750d1-56dd-4e55-97e0-72f3cb445e79.mp4″ type=”video/mp4″ /><!– Safari / iPhone video –>
    </video>
  8. Copy the link to the MP4 and save it for later
  9. Repeat for all the videos you want to include in your podcast

Confused by those steps? The screencast below will walk you through it.

View at Screenr

Note: After getting all the links you want to include, you can turn off the iPhone User agent by going to Tools > iPhone 3.0 > Default User Agent

Step 3: Create the XML feed

There are easier ways to do this, but we are just going to create the XML feed for the Video Podcast by hand. This XML feed is what iTunes will use to build and update your Video Podcast. So let’s get started.

  1. Grab my sample Video Podcast XML feed here (Right-Click and select Save As).
  2. Open up the XML file in your favorite text editor (like Notepad++).

Ok, now a little explanation about the Podcast XML structure. A Podcast XML feed is made up of a channel, and a channel has various different items, somewhat like programs. This is kinda similar to like TV channels being made up of various different programs. Like how ESPN is a channel, and has various different programs like Sports Center, Monday Night Football, etc. The Podcast XML will be similar, we first create the channel, and then we will add a bunch of items, and the items will be the individual screencasts.

Create the channel

So lets take a look at the XML file. The first thing you will want to do is update the tags in the channel. The channel has the following tags, most of which are self-explanatory, but here is a short explanation of each:

  • <title> – This is the title of the Video Podcast.
  • <link> – I just made this a link to my homepage (http://www.mozealous.com).
  • <language> – Assuming you can read this, you can probably leave this as is. It is set to English.
  • <copyright> – This is your copyright statement.
  • <itunes:subtitle> – A subtitle for the Video Podcast.
  • <itunes:author> – This is you. The creator of this Video Podcast.
  • <itunes:summary> – A short summary of the Video Podcast. What topics does this podcast cover?
  • <description> – I just made this the same as the summary.
  • <itunes:name> – Your name, the owner of the Video Podcast Feed.
  • <itunes:email> – Your email address.
  • <itunes:image> – A picture that will appear in iTunes next to your Podcast.

If you want to see how these items relate to what is seen in iTunes check out this diagram by clicking the image below.

So update the channel tags with your info, and let’s move on and…

Add items to the channel

Now that we have created the channel, we need to add some “items” or screencasts to our feed. Most of the item tags are pretty self-explanatory, but again, here is a short explanation of each:

  • <title> – This is the title of the specific screencast.
  • <itunes:author> – The creator of the specific screencast.
  • <itunes:subtitle>- I just made mine the same as the title, but you want to provide more info.
  • <itunes:summary> – A longer description of the screencast.
  • <encloure url=”link to podcast” length=”size in bytes” type=”video/mp4″/> – The enclosure tag is made up of:
    • The URL to the screencast (from step 2). I linked to the MP4 on Screenr.
    • The length, which is the size of the screencast in bytes. I couldn’t think of a really good way to get the size of the screencast without downloading the video, so that is what I did. I downloaded it and then checked the size on disk (right-click in windows and select Properties). The size should be listed with numbers only, and in BYTES (ex. 124444. Not 124,444kb).
    • type, which should always be “video/mp4″ for screencasts.
  • <guid> – A unique identifier for the screencast. I just used the URL.
  • <pubDate> – The date this screencast was added to the feed.
  • <itunes:duration> – The duration of the screencast (you can get this from Screenr).
  • <itunes:keyword> – Keywords to help users find your screencast in search.

If you want to see how these items relate to what is seen in iTunes check out this diagram by clicking the image below.

You will want to add items for each screencast you want to include in your podcast. You can update the feed at any time to include new screencasts by adding additional items.

After you have finished updating the XML feed, save the file.

Making a Podcast is an official explanation of all this from Apple. Read it if you have trouble sleeping. Or re-read this post, it should help you sleep too.

Step 4: Submit to iTunes

Now that we have created the XML Feed for our Video Podcast we will want to host it someplace so that we can submit it to iTunes. I just hosted mine on my website at http://www.mozealous.com/vodcast.xml. Once you have it hosted you can submit it to iTunes. This will allow people to find your podcast in the iTunes Store, and to subscribe to your feed.

To submit a Video Podcast feed to iTunes

  1. Launch iTunes
  2. Select the iTunes Store
  3. Select the Podcasts tab
  4. Select Submit a Podcast
  5. Enter the URL to your Podcast Feed and follow the steps outlined

Within 24 hours your Screenr Video Podcast feed will be available on iTunes.

You are done. What’s next?

It might seem like creating this Video Podcast feed was a pain in the ass…well, it was. I know I know, I said that this would be 4 easy steps, and it was closer to 40 complicated steps, well ha, I hooked you anyway. The good news is that once you created the feed it is fairly easy to update, all you need to do is add the screencasts as <items> to the XML feed and the changes will be picked up by iTunes in about a day.

If you create a Screenr Video Podcast feed let me know in the comments below. I’ll highlight them in this post.

So congrats, you are done! You have created your first Video Podcast feed of your Screenr screencasts.

{ 5 comments }

I before E, ESPECIALLY after C

December 24, 2009

Every American elementary schooler is taught the mnemonic device, “I before E, except after C.”  I am dumbfounded by how bad this rule is. I misspell words all the time. Words like policies, species, and caffeine I can never spell correctly because they violate the rule. The rule is littered with exceptions. Recently, I wondered how bad the [...]

Read the full article →

How to use HTTPAnalyzer to debug AICC LMS reporting issues

December 18, 2009

Quick post here. I just created a screencast showing how you can use HTTPAnalyzer to debug reporting issues between content and a Learning Management System. You can get HTTPAnalyzer from the good folks at IEInspector here.

If you are a QA Engineer working on any type of Web Application, HTTPAnalyzer is a must have.

Subscribe [...]

Read the full article →

Microsoft Office 2010 Beta Released – Using it with #Articulate Presenter ‘09

November 18, 2009

Today Microsoft released the Office 2010 Public Beta, meaning anyone who wants it can download it here.  I wanted to give you a heads up, and let you know how it impacts Articulate Presenter ‘09, and for those brave enough to try the two, what you can do if you run into issues.
What you should [...]

Read the full article →

10 Things to Consider Before Choosing an LMS

November 5, 2009

So you know you want an LMS.  Good. This article isn’t here to tell you why you need one, or why you should use one, this is a guide for anyone who already knows they want an LMS, just wants a guide for what to check for.
Over the years I have spent many hours testing [...]

Read the full article →

What Troy McClure Can Teach You About Creating Awesome Screencasts

October 29, 2009

Troy McClure has made some exceptional instructional films in his day. You might remember him from such educational films as The Half-Assed Guide to Foundation Repair and Alice’s Adventures through the Windshield Glass. So with all his instructional video experience, you might be wondering…
What can Troy McClure teach me about creating awesome Screencasts?
Let’s first watch [...]

Read the full article →

How Twitter Can Save Your Life in a Zombie Apocalypse #ZA

October 16, 2009

Thursday (10/08/09) was an unusually quiet day on the Twitter front, for almost 3 hours I didn’t get a single update from anyone I follow, and I normally get updates from the people I follow once every couple of minutes, so going 3 hours with no posts I naturally began to worry, and I began [...]

Read the full article →

I donated to the victims of Ondoy, here is how you can too

September 29, 2009

I just made a small donation to the Philippine National Red Cross to help the over 300,000 people displaced by Typhoon Ondoy in the Philippines.  If you are interested you can make a donation directly to the Philippine National Red Cross here.
A couple of people who work for Articulate are currently displaced by Typhoon Ondoy, [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries