Into the Driver's Seat

The entry of rapid authoring tools brought a change in the way e-learning courses are designed. They enable the quick creation of courses and are user-friendly. They support the HTML5 code, which means functionality on modern browsers and the ability to run courses on mobiles. Prior to their launch, Flash was popular owing to its features that helped produce visually-rich courses with stunning animations and complex interactivities. However, the inability of Flash to match up to rapid authoring tools and the announcement by Adobe to phase out Flash by the end of 2020 have urged organizations to convert Flash courses to HTML5.

Via Elizabeth E Charles

Perhaps Google isn't all bad these days! A new open source HTML5 video player is yours for the download. As well as being a good showcase app it is also practically useful. It is the architectural core of the new 60 Minutes and RedBull.tv apps available in the Chrome Web Store.

 

As well as being a basic video player, the app allows the user to add their own content, be it a single episode or a playlist. A Category page also allows the user to build up a catalog of things they would like to watch. The user interface is fairly polished and you can try it out at The Video Player Sample.

 

The key features of the app are (according to the Google Code Blog):

- A beautiful video watching experience, including a full screen view

- Ability to subscribe to shows, watch episodes, create play lists

- Support for multiple video formats depending on what the user’s browser supports (including WebM, Ogg, MP4, and even a Flash fallback)

- A Categories page with an overview of the different shows/categories available in the app

- Notifications of new episodes (when the app is installed via the Chrome Web Store)

- Built in support for sharing to Google+, Twitter and Facebook

- To ensure easy customization, all source files, including the Photoshop PSD’s, are included

Via Nicolas Weil, ABroaderView