Macromedia™ Flash® is a multimedia tool with a long history of progressively increasing capabilities. Yet because of this slow but steady evolution, even experienced designers and developers of e-Learning are often not aware of everything Flash can do. And, while it may be true that Flash is the single most-often used e-Learning development tool, its lengthy learning curve challenges designers and developers who want to master the full potential of Flash.
One way that people learn is through the experience of others, as encompassed in stories. In anticipation of The eLearning Flash Developer’s Symposium that will be held in Boston April 20-21, 2004, I interviewed five of the expert presenters on the program by telephone, to tap into their experience by asking three basic questions:
- How are they using Flash in e-Learning applications?
- How do they and their associates learn to use Flash?
- What are some of their “lessons learned?”
Participating in the interviews were:
- Amanda Saba, Web Author and Course Developer with The Plus Group (for Sandia National Laboratories)
- Andrew Corbett, Independent e-Learning Developer, Corbett Learning Media
- Ben Glazer, Chief Technology Officer and co-founder, Enspire Learning
- Paul Clothier, Principal, Fhoton Learning
- Thomas Toth, Owner and Chief Designer, Tothweb The interview transcriptions have been edited.
How are you using Flash in your e-Learning projects?
In the past two years, Learning Solutions Magazine has published several articles about using Flash in e-Learning. (See Sidebar 1, Learning Solutions Articles on Flash.) However, these examples are by no means the only uses e-Learning developers have for Flash. Each of our five experts brings particular backgrounds and skills into their projects, and this means that each one uses Flash in a different way.
Macromedia® Flash™ MX and XML: More Than Just Movies, by Gregg Wygonik
July 23, 2002. In this article, Gregg explains how to use XML and Flash MX to represent
the user interface and the sequence of content, not the content itself. The project
demonstrates how to build a small “shell” application in Flash MX that will be
able to work for many projects without the need to recompile anything.
Getting Interactive: Rich, Rapid e-Learning With Macromedia® Flash™ and
Breeze™, by Paul Clothier
September 2, 2003. The most sought-after e-Learning features involve rich media,
animation, and simulation to raise interactivity levels. At the same time, organizations
want shorter development times, lower costs, and better collaboration between
designers and subject matter experts. Find out about two tools that are providing a
“building block” approach to these goals for leading e-Learning vendors, and learn
how these tools can also work for you!
Tutorial: e-Learning with Flash® MX 2004, by Paul Clothier
November 17, 2003. The latest version of Flash MX has been specifically designed
for the instructional designer or subject matter expert who has no experience with
Flash or ActionScript. Here is a fast tutorial that will introduce you to the main features
so that you can start using this tool in your e-Learning projects right away!
Andrew Corbett
Primarily I’ve used Flash in the sciences. I come from a background in biology, and I have a math background as well. While any instruction needs life, I have especially tried to use Flash’s mathematical capability to bring math and science content to life.
I was trying to do this with Java at first, because I came from a modeling background, and Java was more comfortable for me. But Java didn’t live up to its potential in terms of cross-platform compatibilities, whereas with Flash cross-platform compatibility was great.
When they added the math functions to Flash, you were able to actually do simulations. You can simulate random samplings, for example, or plot complex functions in order to modify the plot by choosing parameters, and these applications will work across all platforms. (See Figures 1, 2, and 3)
FIGURE 1 This is one of a suite of tutorials developed with Flash. The students demonstrate their understanding of graphs by dragging data points to the correct location on the plot. (Andrew Corbett)
FIGURE 2 This Flash movie simulates an enzyme-mediated biochemical reaction. It is driven behind the scenes by a valid mathematical model of the chemical reaction. The student can explore the behavior of the reaction by moving the sliders to change key variables. (Andrew Corbett)
FIGURE 3 This Flash movie simulates the monitoring of bird diversity in a hypothetical coastal marsh. Students click “Sample” to randomly generate a new sample, they do some calculations, and they can then check their work. (Andrew Corbett)
Thomas Toth
I’ve been using Flash since version 4, so that’s about four or five years. About half of my work is in e-Learning projects and the rest is your typical Flash development: product demonstrations, banner ads, web sites, that kind of stuff.
I started using Flash for e-Learning because, as far as I’m concerned, it’s the de facto standard for any kind of multimedia work on the Web. Once ActionScript “grew up,” in Flash 5, it started turning into a tool that was a programmer’s dream. It allowed an advanced level of interactivity and variable control, so that users could, for example, type their name in, answer some questions, and the program would evaluate those responses in such a way as to give them feedback or to change the program in a certain way. Once Flash started allowing you to easily import video elements, it then became a no-brainer.
When you’re developing multimedia or e-Learning for the Web, if you need something to move or if you need to import video or audio, you’ve got to be using Flash.
Editor: Oddly enough, I still occasionally hear e-Learning designers who think that Flash isn’t interactive. Apparently they’ve never seen it used that way.
Back when Flash first came out and became very popular, you’d access a Web site, then sit back and watch and, boom-boom, something exciting would happen on the screen. Then you’d click on “Skip Intro” and enter the web site. That’s all that a lot of beginning developers in Flash knew how to do. Number one, they were afraid of ActionScript. Number two, all they needed to do for their customers was accomplished on the time line in Flash. You’d build a movie to start, five or ten seconds later it stops, and then it loops. (Editor’s note: For those unfamiliar with the software, Flash multimedia applications are referred to as “movies.” They can be created by dragging objects to a graphical “time line” or by programming in ActionScript, which is the Flash scripting language.)
You didn’t really need to understand ActionScript in order to develop Flash movies. And then the developer community got hold of it and said, “Wait a minute! This tool is much more robust.” You can dynamically load data from databases into Flash movies, or have information typed into a Flash form that gets processed and stored in the database. And you’ve got various Web services, which are XML data streams that you can incorporate into Flash. These are examples of advanced level components of current Web technology.
Macromedia has done a great job of incorporating this cool technology that talks to databases and adds a level of interactivity into Flash. You just have to take the time and energy to learn ActionScript. Get a Macromedia Training from the Source book or a friends of ED book and figure out how to make this happen. (Editor’s Note: See Thomas’ comments in the section below ”What’s the best way to learn to use Flash?” and the book list in Sidebar 2, Resources.)
Flash is a much more visual way of developing. When you’re developing e-Learning, static HTML pages are great, and pictures are great, but if you can actually use animation or 3D or motion capture or video capture to draw your learner in, your e-Learning programs are going to be much more effective.
Editor: Do you use other tools along with Flash for e-Learning development?
Yes. I use a program called Swift 3D. That’s my 3D development program. I can export the files out of Swift 3D as Flash files. Let’s say I have a globe or a cube that I’m rotating for some reason. I can bring that rotation into Flash and control it using ActionScript or using the time line from within Flash. I also use a program called SWiSH. I don’t use SWiSH for its Flash programming capabilities, I use it for text effects. If you want to blow up some text or have text appear in a certain way, it’s a great way of very rapidly developing text-related effects. I recently downloaded their SWiSHpowerFX, a Flash plug-in that is an extension that I’ve started to play with and it’s a nice addition.
Of course I use Fireworks and PhotoShop for the graphics I bring in, and Dreamweaver for mounting the Flash movies.
Editor: Do you have other developers working with you?
I sub-contract out a
little bit, but most of the work is done by me. There’s a graphics guy I
sometimes go to for making icons — he’s really good at making icon sets. I’ve
got another guy who, if I just need to dump a lot of text or create a bunch of
pages, is really good at generating the HTML pages for me. There’s a woman
who’s a database guru that I go to. I’ve got a team that I work around. I don’t
have any employees, but I sub out to about three or four different people all over
the
Amanda Saba
Actually, in my
current assignment, I am not developing e-Learning with Flash right now. My
comments relate to my experience when I was a multimedia programmer and
developer with Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), working
at AFOTEC, the Air Force Operational Test and
The applications we were building were for blended learning purposes and also to take the place of some of their classroom courses. We decided to build one of these applications in Flash, because previously we had been using Authorware®, and the limitations of Authorware were getting frustrating. We needed some video and we were having a lot of problems, so we decided to go to Flash.
In doing this project, instead of building individual course pieces, we were building a player, where it was all XML-driven. It would grab all the content externally and put it into the Flash player. The external content was .swf files (Flash), jpegs (images), text files, Flash files that were videos, pdfs, all kinds of different files.
Editor: You said you were using Flash because of the limitations of Authorware. You had other options — why did you choose Flash?
There were two of us on the development team and we had worked with Flash before. We were looking at the dynamic capabilities of it. At AFOTEC they were running Cold Fusion version 5, so the future plan, when they upgraded Cold Fusion, was to connect all of the e-Learning to a database and have all the content dragged from the database. We were pulling it from XML files.
The other reason we went with Flash rather than Authorware was because we needed to have the training be both online and on a CD. With Authorware the player is up to, I think, 14 megs now, while the Flash player is only around 700K, so the distribution of the player was another factor.
Our most successful project was one we finished right before I left. It was an introduction to AFOTEC — this is what AFOTEC does, the structure of the people there. It was pretty much a “Welcome to AFOTEC” on CD and it was also going to be online. This had been a standup course previous to that and they decided they wanted it on a CD to send out to everyone.
Ben Glazer
We custom develop courses and simulations. The vast majority of what we do is in Flash. So we have a number of very talented Flash designers and developers who help us to develop high-quality, engaging, and effective learning experiences for our clients.
Our clients are a
pretty mixed bag. Our first client was
We’re working with
Canon
We’ve been using Flash since the start of the company. We did a fairly extensive evaluation of the technology available at that time. We wanted the technology to be an enabler, rather than a barrier to the content that we develop. We considered a variety of different options. We looked at Macromedia Director® and Author-ware and Java, as well as Flash. Flash was really the clear winner — there wasn’t anything else that was close. If you’re going to develop online interactive multimedia, then Flash offers a development capability that’s fairly easy to get up and running quickly. Flash has a large developer and designer community that you can tap into, and that helps provide support for the tool. It’s clearly optimized for deployment, with direct support for things like vector graphics, MP3 compressed audio, and so on. Perhaps the most telling factor is that it’s by far the most commonly found browser plug-in.
Along with Flash, we use tools for developing other forms of media that are included in Flash, like video and audio editing. We’ve developed our own platform that sits on top of Flash and enables us to do things like separate out textual content from graphics and logic. Our writers actually develop their scripts in an Excel spreadsheet, so they can click a button that runs a macro that exports the content to an XML format that our engine can then read in directly to Flash. It enables us to pipeline the development effort to a large extent. Our clients also benefit because we provide them with the ability to then edit that content without having to have any Flash expertise.
Paul Clothier
I develop e-Learning with a number of tools as well as Flash. I use various tools, from plain HTML with Dreamweaver, to Flash, to simulation tools like Qarbon and RoboDemo. I do use Flash a lot, especially when I’ve been working with high-tech companies. Quite often there are concepts they want to communicate that are not always easily understood by using diagrams and two-dimensional pictures with labels on them. I often use Flash to simplify concepts.
Let me give you an example. There’s one company I worked with last year that needed to explain how a certain part of its software reacted if other parts of the software went down. In other words, if a particular executable stopped running, how this “coordinator” component would actually go ahead and restart these other components. That’s not always easy to explain in words or with one or two diagrams, so Flash was used to animate that to simplify the concept.
What’s the best way to learn to use Flash?
Because our experts came from a wide range of backgrounds, they each tended to have learned Flash differently over time. And because some of them work in settings where others are involved, they each have their own views as to the best way for beginners to learn Flash now.
Amanda Saba
I went to some Macromedia-certified courses. Those were usually three days long and they were a really good way to get inducted into the program. But I think it’s really good to mess around with it on your own before you actually go to a class. The classes really teach you how to use ActionScript and how to make Flash interact with other programs.
Editor: Did those classes address much of the XML knowledge you need?
No. I kind of learned on my own and through books. A book that I used a lot was the O’Reilly ActionScript: The Definitive Guide by Colin Moock (This book has been updated; see Sidebar 2: Resources). I didn’t find XML very complicated, and I don’t know if I actually had a book to reference for that. There are a lot of resources online. I usually go to Google Groups if I have a question about something and try to find resources.
Andrew Corbett
I had a lot of programming experience: C, Java, and Visual Basic. I didn’t come from a visual design background, but I very much wanted to take advantage of the capabilities of Flash and create visual interactions. I just learned on the job. I wanted to build these certain kinds of activities, so I dove in and figured out how to make them work. Some of my programming skills were helpful and others were not. There’s a learning curve at the beginning.
Editor: Is that how you developed your XML skills as well?
Actually, I took a two-day course on XML. Usually when I’m learning something new, I collect a bunch of books on it and have a very specific task. I dive in and learn while I’m completing that task.
Editor: Were there any resources for Flash, ActionScript or XML that stand out in your mind?
When I was first learning, Flash was in version 4, and there was a Flash 4 Magic series that New Riders came out with. That gave me a sense of what was possible. (Editor’s note: The reference is to Emberton, David and Hamlin, J. Scott, Flash 4 Magic. This book is now out of print, but New Riders published a successor in February 2004. See Sidebar 2, Resources for the details.)
For ActionScript, there wasn’t a lot of help. I found it pretty obtuse at first, but then they changed it in version 5. After that change, I relied a lot on ActionScript by Colin Moock (Editor’s note: This is the same book referred to by Amanda Saba, above.) That was my bible of programming in ActionScript for Flash 5 and after. Another book that I used, especially for components, was Branden Hall and Samuel Wan’s Object-Oriented Programming with ActionScript.
Ben Glazer
Most of the Flash folks that we have around here got started in some form or another as designers, and most of them are formally trained in design. They studied that in college and had some level of interaction with Flash at that time, to the point at which they graduated and developed their skills professionally. A couple of folks come from a Web development background and Flash was a tool that provided them with a higher level of interactivity multimedia.
Our Flash developers tend to have a Computer Science background, and although a couple of them didn’t know Flash at all when they started, they certainly knew more advanced languages like Java and had a high level of familiarity with JavaScript. Given that ActionScript and JavaScript are based on the same standard, it was very easy for them to get up to speed quickly and really start making an impact.
We have provided training at other companies for instructional designers who had no familiarity with Flash. What we’ve done to make Flash a bit easier for them to pick up and start using, is that we developed a simple framework that provides the basic functionality — Next and Back buttons, basic navigation, simple branching. We teach them the basic tools. We teach them the animation tools, we teach them about tweening and the basic drawing tools. I think that if they start with a relatively simple template and they’re not trying to do something too sophisticated, Flash is probably the best tool that’s out there. We have had a lot of success taking that softer approach. If you don’t have a template to start with, I can see how Flash may be a bit daunting. It’s not particularly targeted toward people that don’t have a design background or who aren’t very comfortable with new software programs.
Paul Clothier
I used to use the online tutorials. Various companies create e-Learning for Flash. Macromedia has tutorials online. Some third-party Flash introductory manuals are pretty good. In fact there’s one I found recently that I recommend. It’s called Naked Macromedia Flash MX 2004, by Jim Shuman and Piyush Patel. It seems to me that you quite often need to go to third party manuals like this because Macromedia manuals tend to be very dense and I think they put off the average user, even though they are fine for the developer. But a book like the one I just mentioned really does simplify things for the end user.
For ActionScript, I usually use the online Help.
Thomas Toth
For ActionScript, start with Macromedia Flash MX 2004 ActionScript: Training from the Source and Foundation ActionScript for Flash MX 2004.
A friend of mine said, “Thomas, I have to make this happen, the customer wants to use Flash with PHP.” So I referred him to a friends of ED book called Foundation PHP for Flash and it taught him exactly what he needed to know.
One of the guys I work with is constantly lamenting that it is so hard to stay on top of the technology in this industry. I’m a “front end person” — I know a little bit of PHP, I know a little about iSQL, I know a lot of Flash, a lot of HTML, a little bit of XML. You figure out all of your skillsets and then you augment that. If I need ASP and a SQL database, I can run ASP, I can kind of work SQL, but you know, my gosh, I’m going to go to Janice for that. If it’s iSQL or PHP, I can handle that, but if it’s Cold Fusion, I’ve either got to learn that or go find somebody who knows Cold Fusion.
You can’t be a master of everything that’s out there. You have to pick and choose your areas. The technology changes so fast, and Macromedia upgrades the product line every year. Just when you get through your current training manuals and get on top of the software application, they come out with a new version.
I’m an early adopter,
the kind of developer who downloads the product the day it comes out. In
addition to doing the development, I go out to the
Bhangal, Sham. Foundation ActionScript for Flash MX 2004. December 2003.
friends of ED. ISBN: 1-590-59305-7
Capraro, Michelangelo, et al. Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Magic. February 2004.
New Riders. ISBN: 0-735-71377-4
DeHaan, Jen. Macromedia Flash MX 2004: Training from the Source. November
2003. Macromedia Press. ISBN: 0-321-21342-4
Franklin, Derek and Makar, Jobe. Macromedia Flash MX 2004 ActionScript: Training
from the Source. November 2003. Macromedia Press. ISBN: 0-321-21343-2
Hall, Branden and Wan, Samuel. Object-Oriented Programming with ActionScript.
September 2002. New Riders. ISBN: 0-735-71183-6
Moock, Colin. ActionScript for Flash MX: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition.
December 2002. O’Reilly. ISBN: 0-596-00396-X
Shuman, Jim and Patel, Piyush. Naked Macromedia Flash MX 2004. November
2003. Muska & Lipman Pub. ISBN: 1-592-00124-6
Stallons, Jeanette. Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Application
Development: Training from the Source. May 2004 (not yet released).
Macromedia Press. ISBN: 0-321-23834-6
Webster, Steve. Foundation PHP for Flash. September 2001. friends of ED.
ASIN: 1-903-45016-0
Do you have any “lessons learned” that you’d like to share?
Finally, I ended the interviews by asking the experts for their insights into the use of Flash for e-Learning development. It won’t be any surprise that each of them had a slightly different way of answering that question.
Amanda Saba
I think that there’s a misconception about Flash because it can be used for so many different things. Some people think it’s just for making pretty little intros to Web sites and they don’t understand that it can be a powerful tool. To convince these people that Flash can be used to create e-Learning (or anything else) can be a challenge.
To get into it, I think it’s easier now with Flash 2004 MX. It’s aimed more toward the programming side, at least the Professional side of it is. So I think that helps. But I haven’t had any experience with designers and SMEs who haven’t worked with Flash or ActionScript when they try to use the tool.
I would just suggest that people get into Flash and start trying to develop things — that’s the best way to learn it. Unless you try to do something in Flash, you’re really not going to understand how powerful it is.
Andrew Corbett
The only thing that makes me a little bit nervous about Flash is that it’s completely owned and supported by a single company. But in terms of its capabilities, I haven’t found anything I wanted to do that I couldn’t do. There is usually a way to do it within Flash.
As I said, there’s quite a learning curve for new users, but it may be a little easier in the new version because of the changes involving the time line, and the addition of the pre-built components and learning interactions.
Thomas Toth
The thing I tell my students all the time, even in my beginning courses, is “Learn ActionScript.” I force them to learn ActionScript. Yes, you can do a lot of stuff with Flash just sticking with the time line, but you really understand the power of Flash, especially for e-Learning, when you start learning ActionScript. I didn’t start learning ActionScript seriously until 18 months ago. I had been using Flash forever, I just stuck to the time line. I knew how to do a Stop command or a Play command but I never dove into the programming language. I kept saying, I’ll never use this, or it’s not strong enough to use. But when MX came out, it was like, “OK, I’ve really got to get my rear in gear and start learning this.” There’s a part of me that says I wish I had learned it sooner, I wish I hadn’t been as afraid of it as I was.
When you deal with graphics all day you make pretty interfaces and you write HTML code. ActionScript and JavaScript and some of those other server-side scripting languages are pretty intense. If you’re a PhotoShop master, you’re asking, “What do you mean I have to program this rollover in JavaScript? It does it for me.” That’s what my attitude was toward ActionScript — I don’t need to learn it because I can figure out another way to do it or I can borrow someone else’s code and get it done.
But once I started learning Action-Script, my Flash development rapidly accelerated and my ability to give customers what they were asking for in a shorter period of time made my life a lot easier. So my lesson learned is, “Learn ActionScript sooner rather than later.” Don’t be afraid of it and don’t get stuck on all the pretty graphics you can do. Really start diving into that development so that you can take your projects to the next level.
Ben Glazer
For beginners, it’s pretty easy to be overwhelmed by the amount of functionality that’s now built into Flash. It’s a pretty sophisticated tool. On the other hand, it’s easy to be seduced by the amount of power. I guess I would urge people to resist that temptation. Choose to focus on the core of what Flash has offered since it was first created. Have a clear understanding of what those learning objectives are, and what information you’re trying to convey. Plan it out before you actually start implementing it in Flash. Write scripts, draw storyboards, and make sure that your ideas and your teaching methodology are sound before you actually dive into the multimedia development.
Paul Clothier
For me the big challenge with Flash was always the learning curve. I think that has improved a bit with the past couple of releases. Even so, it’s not an intuitive program. What puts off a lot of people is, if they just sat down in front of Excel or Word they could figure it out. But if they sat down in front of Flash, there are so many terminologies — scenes and frames, movie clips, time lines, tweening — it’s a bit overwhelming.
Rather than try to learn Flash as a program from A to Z, pick a specific simple project with simple animation, and successfully do that. In the process of doing that, you will hit on a lot of areas that you can expand on later. When I was learning ActionScript, a lot of the ActionScript I learned was doing something simple and then tweaking it — if I can move it there, can I increase the speed, can I move that there? Rather than learn everything and take it on in huge chunks, I always recommend users take a simple project, and do something fun and interesting. Then you’ve got the basics, and in your own time you can expand it to a bit more code. Start small and with something real. That’s the way I’ll be approaching ActionScript in the Symposium.
Conclusion
Well, there you have
the views of some of the top Flash designers and developers in the
