One of the common questions I get is, “What is the best format for audio and video?” I wish there was a perfect answer for every situation. The best answer usually depends on the target audience and the servers used to deliver the audio and video. If the target audience only uses Windows computers, then selecting Windows media is a good choice. If the target audience will use different platforms and browsers, then it is best to pick either Flash audio and video or MPEG for video and MP3 for audio. When considered the need for different types of audio and video when we created our new e-Learning Authoring Tool. We decided to support all of these video formats and we decided to support audio and video delivered form the web server (progressive media) and from streaming media servers. This video on YouTube shows the audio and video features.
Archive for the ‘Flash/ActionScript’ Category
Flash problem fix for Articulate
Saturday, November 1st, 2008Articulate presenter is a popular course authoring tool for the people who use our Learning Management System (LMS) Hosting Service. Learners who use the 10.0 version of the Flash plug-in will not be able to view the content within an Articulate course. Articulate released a program to patch existing courses. The patch program is easy to use and works nicely to fix the problem.
Aligning movies in the Flash Toolkit
Wednesday, October 1st, 2008Our Flash Course Development Toolkit uses a JavaScript function to insert the Flash movie into the HTML page. This function is currently set to center the Flash movie in the HTML page. You can pass the salign:”L” parameter to left-align the movie:
var FO = { movie:”player.swf”, width:”100%”, height:”100%”, salign:”L”, majorversion:”8″, build:”0″, id:”ufoCom”, name:”ufoCom”, swliveconnect:”true”, allowscriptaccess:”always”, setcontainercss:”true” };
SCORM 2.0
Thursday, August 14th, 2008LETSI is a new organization working on the future of SCORM. LETSI had a call for white papers that asked members of the e-learning community for the best ideas for a future version of SCORM called SCORM 2.0. I submitted a paper called SCO 2.0: The Lucas Proposal – SCO-based Sequencing. The white paper proposes that we eliminate simple sequencing and replace it with SCO-based sequencing.
Simple sequencing sound simple but its not. Simple sequencing is the SCORM 2004 way to define how a learners interaction will the SCOs in the course will affect navigation, completion, success (pass/fail) and the score of the course. Simple sequencing is described in a 250 page specification. The specification is a tough read and it is difficult for most developers to use to create real courses.
I am proposing a much simpler solution called SCO-based sequencing. The LMS launches just one SCO for a course. That SCO can launch child SCOs if needed. The parent provides a SCORM runtime API to the child SCOs so it can receive all of the information provided by the child. For example, the child tells the parent that the learner has completed the SCO with a passing score of 90. The parent SCO can use the information provided by the child to make sequencing decisions.
SCO-based sequencing allows a course to be in full control over its user interface. Course developers will not have to worry how their multi-SCO will look and behave in different LMSs. Learners will not be confused by 2 sets of navigation (one provided within a SCO and another by the LMS).
SCO-based sequencing has other advantages. It allows a multi-SCO course to be developed in other web languages such Flash and Silverlight.
Please post comments to the white paper on the LETSI web site.
IE patch eliminates click to activate
Friday, May 16th, 2008Microsoft has released a patch for Internet Explorer that eliminates the click to activate message that you used to get when you clicked on an ActiveX control (examples: Flash and Windows media). The patch has been available for several months so it all of that ActiveX insertion code can finally go the way of the dinosaur.
Using Flash V2 Components in a Course
Monday, January 15th, 2007Flash 8 provides a set of components that make it easy to create interactivity in an e-learning course (the newer set of components in Flash are the version 2 or V2 components). One of the things you will need to know to use V2 components is the way Flash loads components and when ActionScript is called from listeners and frames. Here is a scenario that will give you an insight on the use of components in a course:
Scenario: Your course provides “next” and “previous” buttons that let the learner move forward and backward in the course. In Flash, you would have listener functions that process the click events for the ”next” and “previous” buttons. In the listener function for the “next” button you may want to load another part of the user interface in the course (for example, you may want to load a multiple choice question). A good way to load the user interface is to call gotoAndStop(name-of-frame). This frame would contain the components that present a multiple choice question to the learner.
To make sure your course works correctly you should NOT set or get any of the properties of the components immediately after your call to the gotoAndStop() function. However, your components are not fully loaded until the frame with those components is loaded. So, if you need to get or set properties on those components you should do so in code executed from the loaded frame. You should not get or set the properties inside the listener of your “next” button.
Flash 8 security settings
Wednesday, October 18th, 2006I do quite a bit of course development with Flash. Flash 8 has some additional security. By default, it will not let you run content from your local hard drive that communicates between SWFs and JavaScript and between SWFs. This makes it seem like your course is suddenly broken. You can change thes default securlty settings of Flash with the Flash Settings Manager. You enable the communications by adding the folder to the list.