We’re talking about Flash this week and the impact that devices like the iPad will have on existing educational resources, development of new resources, tools and importantly the impact on learners and learning.
With James Clay, Dave Foord, Rob Englebright and Ron Mitchell.
This is the fifty fifth e-Learning Stuff Podcast, Gordon’s alive…
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Shownotes
- I am not that bothered as Steve Jobs talks about Flash
- The Xerte Project provides a full suite of open source tools for elearning developers and content authors producing interactive learning materials.
Photo source.
A fascinating conversation, James et. al., thanks. It helped me clarify my own views on the flash/mobile devices/iPad/content creation debate(s). A few comments:
– If we agree that learners and pedagogy drive technology (and not the other way around) and if the introduction of the iPad replicates the success of the iPhone and iPod Touch in education then I don’t think ‘content creators’ can ignore the need to look to Flash alternatives for authoring interactive learning content. The iPad may not be a ‘computer’ in the traditional sense but its functionality and design result in learning affordances that take it way beyond the smartphone in my opinion. Whether a combination of HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript can offer the same level of interactivity as Flash, and tools similar to Xerte appear to make it easy to create this content, I don’t know, but I’m with Rob in that I hope it is the case.
– I say this as a huge fan of the Xerte Online Toolkits which I’m currently getting to grips with to create some OER content for a project at the University of Bath. However, at the same time as I’m creating interactive learning objects using Xerte, I can’t help thinking that we’re potentially excluding a new generation of learners who will be using touch-based mobile devices in their learning. At the very least we’re saying to them you ought to be using a desktop PC/Mac/Linux box to access this learning content. Is there any evidence to suggest that learners are using iPads, smartphones and other mobile devices rather than desktop PCs to access learning content such as podcasts or VLE-driven material?
– I hope Apple are listening to this debate too. Because, as Ron said, there is a huge amount of engaging flash-based interactive learning content on the web that is not just going to disappear overnight, or indeed be repurposed in the form of platform-agnostic content. And with Android devices starting to appear which do run Flash on a touch-screen (how well, or with what consequences to battery life is another matter) Apple could find themselves in a situation where educational institutions recommend Android, Windows 7 and other non-Apple devices to their learners. Then again perhaps the success of iPads in universities and colleges will be driven by enterprising developers who will create apps that replicate the functionality of something like Xerte?