Philly Download – My biggest takeaways from mLearning DevCon 2012

Philly Download – My biggest takeaways from mLearning DevCon 2012

I spent the better part of the past week in Philadelphia attending mLearning DevCon 2012 with Greg Gardner and Michael Sheyahshe.  Below is some of the great stuff I picked up on.  

Titanium Studio

Titanium Studio is  a free (depending on the licensing you chose) mobile development tool for creating content across multiple platforms – Very much like FlashBuilder.  My comparision is both a compliment and an insult.  It's complex, but then again a software package that publishes "native" apps to IOS, Android, Blackberry and WebOS was not going to be simple.  In addition to having a similar interface to FlashBuilder the code is very ActionScript like. So far it does not have the complexity of Sencha or the unfamiliar aspects of jQuery.  

I have been trying to get it up and running and have run into some snags. I contacted Jeff Batt of Rapid Intake who gave the presentation.  He provided a link from Lynda.com to help get me up and running.  I have only just started looking it over but seems like it will be a big help.

Before you can get to the tutorial though you will need to install.  That can be problematic.  There were a ton of updates to install before you could even get rolling.

Adobe Edge

Another cool tool I heard about at eLearningDevCon.  It's an HTML5 animation tool from Adobe that uses an interface a great deal like After Effects.  It does provide for interactivity, but just based on the whole timeline set up of the interface, it's an animation tool, not a heavy programming tool.  The best part is it's FREE! At least to try out.  I was able to pull up something at the conference about a licensing deal where if you signup now for the current version, that license will transfer over when a more official version come out.  Unfortunately I have not been able to navigate my way back.  All I can currently find is Edge available on Adobe's Creative Cloud.  You will need an Adobe ID to sign in.

Kwik 2

This is a cool plug-in for photoshop.  I don't see as much use for this but, I think it could be very useful for proof of concept and quick prototyping.  Kwik will turn a photoshop document into a mobile app, including events and gestures.  To me it's biggest strength is also it's biggest weakness - it's a PSD.  I think it's going to produce large files.  That said I have not had a chance to look at it very well.  You can get a free version that will support projects up to 6 pages.  Thanks to Orlando Rivera (http://digitalsummit.tv/) for cluing me in on this one.

http://www.kwiksher.com/news/introducing-kwik-2-beta/

Tin Can API

A more powerful, easier to use SCORM?  That's an idea I can get behind. This one might have the biggest implications but so far as I can tell it's also the most nebulous.  Tin Can API is the newest flavor of SCORM.  They did talk a lot about what it can do and the kind of things you can track now but both the keynote and the hands on sessions were light on "this is how you do it".  To me the idea of SCORM where you do not have to be connected to the LMS is pretty cool.  You can turn almost anything into something trackable.  Looks like they are using "activities" as the basis now.  I don't know how many action words they have set up but its based on things like learned, attended and that sort of thing.

I was able to learn a bit more about the API from the site but I am still digging into the details.

I also got my reeducation in mobile video courtesy of Nick Floro (http://nickfloro.com/). Biggest takeaway there?  That is was long overdue.

The low key conference was very interesting.  I learned a great deal .  Not so much actual techniques but just whats out there and tools I was not aware of.  Thanks so much to Jason Bickle, Rapid Intake, and all of the sponsors (including ICF) for putting on a very educational week.

HTML5 or Flash ?

Ok. I'll admit, right up front, that I'm not going to take sides on this one.  I've been a long-time developer using both HTML-based and Flash-based solutions. I'm quite comfortable using either technology to get the job done.

To use a mechanical analogy: Say you hand me either a pair of needle-nose pliers OR a pair of lineman's (or "combination") pliers. These are certainly different tools and have different functions...but, I can sure squeeze/pinch/etc. the heck out of something with either one. The same can be said for HTML5 or Flash; each have their own specific set of advantages, but both come in quite handy, when it comes to getting the job done, especially from a software solutions perspective.

A recent blog article on http://www.trainingindustry.com further discusses HTML5 and Flash's differences, but supports the above idea that either/both technologies work well. The article goes on to discuss "HTML5 in Learning Solutions" and highlights some advantages. Namely, Semantics, Multimedia, Graphics, Device access, and Offline Storage. I'd suggest viewing the article at http://www.trainingindustry.com/learning-technologies/articles/using-html5-in-learning-solutions.aspx to get the full description behind these.
One part of the article stands out to me, which I will quote here:

HTML5 in Learning Solutions: Collaborative Learning
There is yet another aspect to the learning equation and how HTML5 can play a role that is quite distinct in the world of learning solutions, with respect to social collaboration. Just about everyone is familiar with social networks these days and the benefits of staying connected in the personal and professional world. HTML5 makes it easy to build solutions around collaboration among a group of experts and learners. Collaboration in the online world is so powerful that it can change the way everything works.

I agree with much of this. Thinking towards social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and/or other, it becomes clear that we developers need to plan for implementation of these technologies, not matter what platform for which we are creating content. Take the JSFiddle example below, showing how easy it is to grab Tweets using jQuery. Click the 'Result' button to run the simple script.

 Of course, this is a rudimentary example, but think of the possibilities implementing the social aspect for our clients, as we deploy to desktop units or even mobile devices, using HTML5.  Certainly, I am not taking sides here - I will continue to use both Flash and/or HTML5 where needed...however, I use the example above to remind us, as developers, that we can continue to think past our current technological reach.


For now, we'll see how the comparison between the two solutions work out. I'd wager that both will be around for quite some time, for us to all argue over, even if one dies on the vine. (...I mean, there are still developers out there programming in Authorware, right?)

Great Flash utility classes

I would like to share a few of my favorite Flash classes. It's a good bet if you are trying to develop something there is probably someone out there who has created a class to make the task a bit easier. The classes below have saved me a ton of time and an untold amount of grey hair.

Tweener
Tweener is used in just about every project I work on. For me the the ease of use and the functionality it provides is indispensable. X, Y, Scale, Rotation, just about anything that has a numerical value can be tweened. One of my favorite things about Tweener is the Cheat Sheet. It allows you to quickly see how different types of easing will turn out.



Greensock Loadermax 
Loadermax is a bulk loading class that handles a variety of file types. I only recently discovered Loadermax and have already put it to quite a bit of use. If you use loaded XML to define other media that is to be loaded at run-time, you will love Loadermax's automatic parsing of related nodes. To take advantage of this you will need to first activate the auto loading for each file type in your code.

In ActionScript
//only necessary once - allows XMLLoader to recognize nodes inside the XML
LoaderMax.activate([SWFLoader]);
LoaderMax.activate([MP3Loader]); 
LoaderMax.activate([ImageLoader]); 

// load the xml 
var xmlloader:XMLLoader = new XMLLoader(sourceXMLString, {onComplete:completeHandler,onProgress:progressHandler, estimatedBytes:50000}); 
xmlloader.load();

In the XML
<LoaderMax name="mainQueue" load="true" >
<MP3Loader name="M2L2128a" url="M2L2128a.mp3" autoPlay="false" loops="1" />
<SWFLoader name="M2L2128z" url="M2L2128z.swf" x="0" y="0" alpha="1" />
<ImageLoader name="sceneImage" url="Office2.jpg" x="1.5" y="102" alpha="1" />
</LoaderMax>

As Loadermax comes across and related nodes it will add the necessary instances and then begin loading the file and add it to the loaders overall progress. The interface to access these loaded file took me some time to get familiar with but it was a small price to pay for the ease of combining all my files into one loader. It is worth noting Greensock does have it's own set of tweeners if you like to keep all of your utilities in the same family.

AudioCuePoint
Have you ever wished you could use an audio cue point on a loaded MP3 the same way you can with a FLV? Now you can. While not as robust as the other two classes, the AudioCuePoint class makes syncing layered animation to your audio a snap.