Apple About to Unleash Shock & Awe on eLearning?
June 18, 2008
I’m a gadget freak. I’ll admit it. And my favorite gadget of all time is my Apple iPhone. Period. Frankly, it’s the device I’ve been waiting for these many years (and through one tragically horrible cell phone or PDA after another (may you rot in Heck, miserable, despised little Sony-Ericsson T610, bane of my pre-iPhone life)).
Is it wrong to be deeply in love with a handful of glass, chrome, aluminum, silicon and plastic? Perhaps. But I don’t care. It’s real, baby, even if you don’t understand it. We have something…special.
OK, I’m veering off course now. Correcting…
Even if you’re not a gadget freak, you’ve probably heard that Apple recently announced its second version of the iPhone. Cheaper, faster, GPS inside, yada yada. Yes, it will be cool. Yes, I will be buying one. As will a bajillion other members of the horrible-gadget-oppressed masses.
But the bigger news to me does not involve the hardware, but the software (which applies to the current iPhone as well). A couple of months ago Apple announced the App Store, which will feature 3rd party software offerings for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The App Store will provide a convenient (if restrictive) way to browse and purchase (or download for free), directly from the iPhone/iPod itself, what I expect to be a mostly-stellar offering of touchscreen-based applications.
Will eLearning applications be among them? Heck yes they will!
Modality Learning announced (onstage at the Stevenote, no less) several apps that will be available when the App Store launches, including Brain Quest for kids, a variety of educational apps for medical students (as seen in the image at the top of this post), and Frommer’s travel guides.
Expect an avalanche of other educational software to follow from other developers.
The eLearning potential for that big, beautiful, buttery smooth touchscreen you can carry anywhere is so enormous, it makes me hyper like a 3rd grader hopped up on Sugar Smacks. Wait, I’m always that hyper. But I digress…
Will Apple be the ones to finally put legitimate eLearning in our pockets? My money says yes. Hey, it’s not a smart move to bet against El Jobso these days. And heaven knows no other pocketable device thus far has given mobile eLearning real legs.
I can’t wait to see the possibilities. And, perhaps, create some of my own.
The future of mobile eLearning truly begins July 11. Mark your calendars.
Now, who is going to step up to the plate and develop a great eLearning authoring tool for the iPhone? Since my favorite eLearning software company is beholden to Microsoft PowerPoint (the Windows version only, no less) and Adobe Flash - neither of which are currently allowed to play in the iPhone Garden - is another contender ready to bring the goods?
Posted in Apple, Evangelism, Things I Love, eLearning Design, eLearning Development Tools
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June 19th, 2008 at 2:28 am
What authoring tools are they using to develop these?
Since your favorite tool and a slew of others, are all Flash based, which authoring tools are being used to create this new content? Is it just html?
ScreenFlow, as you’ve pointed out, is a great tool but it’s all video. How do we add interactivity and hyperlinking to these solutions?
Okay, I’ll show my age here, but this sort of begs for a HyperCard tool. Does anyone remember that?
June 19th, 2008 at 7:03 am
Scott, I assume they’re using Apple’s SDK to create these as there are no other authoring tools available at this point (as far as I know).
As for ScreenFlow-type video content, I say that type of media is best integrated into a framework that allows the addition of interaction and hyperlinking. For example, I could insert the video into an Articulate-based course, which would allow me to incorporate other interactive elements as well.
P.S. HyperCard was awesome!
June 20th, 2008 at 9:50 am
It’s great to hear that off-the-shelf educational stuff is coming, and I love my iPhone, too. However, I think the iPhone will still be limited as a corporate elearning tool until it supports Flash. As development for regular mobile phones has shown, corporations are reluctant to spend extra time and trouble to create a phone-readable version of content, especially when they’re locked in to an LMS and think that the only solution to any problem is a Flash-based course.
Maybe a vendor will adapt their Flash-producing tool to simultaneously produce content for the iPhone. Or maybe LMS users will rebel and rediscover simpler approaches like HTML or our old pal Hypercard. If you can do it in HTML, you can do it on an iPhone.
June 20th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Cathy, I agree that the lack of Flash support on the iPhone seems like a fatal flaw. However, my understanding is Flash for mobile devices is not terribly robust and is a processor (hence battery) killer. A Flash-based eLearning course on an iPhone (or Blackberry, or anything else) wouldn’t be of much value if it kills your battery in 30 minutes.
Is this really a technical issue? Or is Apple simply looking for something to substitute for Flash for strategic reasons? We shall see.
The bottom line is if iPhone sales take off, we will see either Flash on the iPhone or a suitable replacement in the near future:
http://www.macworld.com/article/134065/2008/06/sprout.html