Are you prepared for the death of Flash?
May 15, 2019
Growing up, for me, FLASH was the coolest thing, it was everywhere! My teenage years were over in a FLASH. Vanilla Ice was a FLASH in the pan. My big brothers brand new Hi-Tec trainers were so FLASH. They were even using FLASH to clean toilets. Even now and throughout my IT career, Flash has always been something you would see on your home or work PC that was used to make anything that delivered interactive content, such as websites, games and videos. Unfortunately, and just like my brothers brand new Hi-Tec trainers, Flash will soon be dead. Yes, Adobe has announced that by December 2020 Flash will die.
What is Flash?
So, in relation to the e-learning world what exactly is flash and what is it used for? Flash is a piece of software developed by Macromedia (now Adobe), which was used to create vector graphics-based animation programs with full-screen navigation interfaces, graphic illustrations, and simple interactivity in an antialiased, resizable file format. (Check me out, how damn Techie did I just sound eh!!) Thanks ‘Whatis.com’.
Basically, Flash allows us to create and view moving images online.
Why do I need to know this?
The reason that I am discussing Flash in this blog, is that one of the many things that Flash has been used for in the past is to create e-learning content. Here at Learning Pool, we want to make sure that all of our customers are fully aware that this is happening so that they can be prepared.
Even though Adobe has advised that it’s going to be 2020 when they completely kill off the software, many browser providers have advised that they intend to disable the plugin by the middle of 2019. Even though the flash plugin, for now, will only be disabled, any learners accessing an LMS with content containing flash could encounter issues loading or viewing it.
What can I do?
If you’re a Learning Pool customer….
We’ve installed a handy report onto all of our customer sites, which will allow administrators to check course pages for content containing Flash. The Flash Apocalypse Report is easily accessible under the report section of your Site Administration block. The report will let you see which courses on your LMS contain flash and whether or not HTML5 is present as a fallback in case flash isn’t supported.
If you’re not a customer….
Check with your LMS provider to see if they can help identify Flash within their platform. Once you know which courses contain Flash you can quickly and easily build replacement course material using our Adapt Builder tool.
Adapt lets you create flexible, responsive e-learning courses in a very short space of time. If you have a lot of courses that need changing, or you just want to use the opportunity to revitalise some of your material, talk to our award-winning custom content team about your requirements.
For more information on Adapt Builder or custom content, or if you have any questions, please get in touch or fill out the form below.
About the author
Andrew started his journey at Learning Pool over 8 years ago, working in our Customer Success team. He’s since moved through the business, to the Projects team and is now a Product Manager in the Software Development Team.
Got a learning problem to solve?
Get in touch to discover how we can help
