The HTML5 situation is something that greatly effects how we make, position and distribute content. As you know, this issue has come to a head with the conflicts between Apple and Adobe. But, what is HTML5 and why is this important?
According to our guest blogger, Craig Weiss (http://www.elearninfo.com/), here are some points you need to know:
HTML5 – Game Changer
Without boring you to death on the details of HTML5, what I will say is this will be a game changer in our industry for a number of reasons.
- Improves video and audio quality – extensively – thus your Social Learning/Social Media experience has just increased infinitely; Vivemo, Blip.tv and YouTube (beta) are already offering videos in HTML5 players.
- Improved interactivity over Flash
- Open Source not Proprietary like Flash
- Enhanced multimedia
- APIs
- Localization
- Uses 20% of computer resources compared to 40% for Flash – this makes a big difference when someone is trying to view anything, regardless of their internet connection (DSL, Cable, Modem, T1, etc.)
- Works in the Ipad Tablet and will work in other manufacture tablets, smartphones too – M-Learning to the next level. Oh, e-readers – sure down the pipeline.
- Not buggy – Flash is buggy
- Supports file drag and drop capabilities
- All the big browsers are supporting it i.e. Safari, Chrome, Microsoft IE9, Opera and soon FireFox (at time of writing, not yet)
- Eliminates plugins (could it be the end of Silverlight?) Flash requires a plugin (especially for updates)
- You can build courses in HTML5, as you would in Flash — thus as rapid e-learning authoring tools see this as common place, they will need to adapt, thus enabling HTML5 files to be inserted
- Mobile learning features that will far exceed anything that is possible today
What is the downside?
Right now, the only downside are video codecs. Sadly, there is not one standard. Video codecs enable you to view video on your computer (they exist in your player for example), and are already installed. Sometimes, you may see the infamous, “unable to play video” or “codec not installed”, which means you are missing that codec. So, you have to go online to a codec directory and download the appropriate codec. Codecs exist for audio and video.
The full article from Craig Weiss appears here: http://www.interactyx.com/blog/html5-a-the-next-evolution-for-elearning
After doing some research of my own, I came across a great piece from Focus that gives a great summary of everything you need to know about HTML5. Click on the image to download or it can be found at : http//www.interactyx.com/pdf/FocusFYI_WhatsHTML5WhyWeShouldAllCare.pdf
If you are developing content to be distributed via eLearning software or mLearning technologies that you expect to be used efficiently over the upcoming years, this is definitely an issue that will effect you in one way or another. There is good information out there; learn what you can.If you have information regarding HTML5 v Flash issues that you’d like to share, please feel free to send it my way or post as a comment below.
Jeffrey A. Roth
Vice President, Marketing and Communications
+1.888.575.2266 x201 or +44.020.7084.6244 x201