No Really, What Do You Need That HTML5 Doesn’t Have?

Posted on by Judy Unrein

A few weeks ago, I asked you to share what you are currently doing in elearning that couldn’t be accomplished in HTML5. Or, if you’re not sure what “HTML5″ means (and you could hardly be blamed these days), tell me something you’re doing or want to do and I will tell you whether it’s part of the HTML5 spec. I got no takers.

But this is not bait; it’s a serious question. The only way we can know whether HTML5 is ready for elearning yet is to evaluate its capabilities against what we already do… and want to do.

If you comment and tell me about an elearning project you are doing that is not supported by the “HTML5 stack” of technologies — or if you’re not sure — I will PayPal you one dollar.

Go ahead. I have dozens of dollars.

  • http://blog.learnlets.com Clark Quinn

    Judy, I wonder if HTML5 is capable of supporting sophisticated enough programming and interactions to support a real model-driven game (read: immersive learning simulation). Where what you (and what you’ve done), and some variability/randomness percolates through the model to compute what happens next. And, ideally, doing it locally, so you don’t *have* to be connected to the web and a server hosting the engine to keep going after you’ve connected and down a download to get started. I see that it can play videos, support reasonable interactions (e.g. drag and drop), but I’m looking for a cross platform way to deliver really meaningful learning experiences.

  • http://www.wslash.net Jack Pierce

    So, Clark, what you’re asking, at least in part, is can HTML5 store temporary, local variables that support some sort of branching or other simulation logic. Can it even track how many right and wrong choices learners make during their session? Not being a developer, I’m not sure what Flash stores for the LMS, vs. what the HTML wrapper stores. But I would like answers to these questions, too!

  • http://SkillCasting.com Scott Skibell

    Do the people who consume our training really care about all our backend concerns about storing variables and LMS connectivity? Are these smoke screens we’re using to justify our existence? Are these requirements adding unnecessary costs?

    I’d love to build highly interactive fully immersive simulations that tracks every detail but for most real world needs, it’s overkill. HTML5 maybe good enough and will put pressure on the rapid e-learning vendors.

    In the end, HTML5 is probably all we need for 80% of business training.

  • Judy Unrein

    I apologize that I didn’t see these comments before now. Turns out my email notifications are broken. Everyone, the PayPals are in the email!

    Clark, because the HTML5 stack includes so many web technologies in use, I believe the answer to your question is Yes. Please take a look at this example that engineers at Google built about a year ago to demonstrate HTML5 capabilities. (Warning: It’s violent.) http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/01/google-html5-quake/ I won’t profess to be an expert on virtual world or gaming platforms, but I’m going to hazard a guess that if Quake can be rebuilt in HTML5, HTML5 can handle immersive learning situations, as well. Thank you so much for your question… and please tell me if you disagree.

    Jack, thanks for asking! I often build SCORM-compliant courses that are solely HTML-based… no Flash. So I can confirm that Flash is not needed either to store variables or communicate them to the LMS. In fact, the HTML wrapper is essential to run in the SCORM environment, the Flash component is not. That’s one of the reasons I feel that HTML5 is just as appropriate for LMS-based learning as Flash is… if not more so.

    Scott, I agree with your last statement, although I think the percentage is higher. I have not been able to find that many things that business training requires that are outside of the capabilities of HTML5. However, they may be FAR outside the capabilities of what many rapid development tools can offer. I was heartened to see many more HTML5 options coming to light at TechKnowledge and Learning Solutions this year. More on those soon…

  • Steve

    There are a few things that trouble me about the assumptions we’re making about HTML5.

    For the demos I try at home I’m really impressed with the examples I’m able to find and run in my newer versions of Safari and Firefox. Even so, the experiences are NOT consistent between the environments and in some cases, being a Flash developer, I’m disappointed in the results.

    The real kicker comes when I attempt to access these at work. IE7 hates HTML5. Some of the examples work. Others work but look like complete garbage. Others fail to work at all.

    In five years I think this’ll still be an issue. I have some clients that still run IE6.

    The tools will get better (up until Hype I think there was a seriously false comparison between Flash and HTML5 to do “Flashish” things), the support will get better, and we’ll probably start to see things done soon in HTML5 that people can’t and wouldn’t consider doing with Flash. All that aside, I’m still wary of the false comparisons. Media integration, control, speed of development, and consistency of experience regardless of platform (unless you’re talking about iOS) are benefits of Flash compared with practically any other *tool or platform* on the market.

    A rational comparison has got to include more than “feature list wise it compares”. Nuance of execution and time investment for the same outcome have gotta matter. And right now, I think that’s Flash’s edge. That edge will surely diminish. The speed / degree of that happening is anyone’s guess, but it’s not here yet.

  • Steve

    Ooh, I just noticed your offer for $1. OK!

    I have a client that still runs IE6 as their corporate browser, they want to integrate video que points with a synchronized presentation that enables “question breaks” at various points of the presentation. They would like this presentation to use the answers of the questions to offer opportunities for additional presentation components. They have used me before so they have access to a series of interaction components built in Flash that makes this pretty easy and are only willing to pay the costs for development that they are used to.

    Can you point out the parts of this narrative that are / are not supportable using HTML5? Functionally, I think you can bend HTML5 to do the stuff mentioned. I also think using a semantic structure would encourage some rethinking of the input. But it doesn’t matter. Their environment isn’t ready for it. Nor is their pocketbook given the current state of tools.

    The cart is cool. The horse is still a fetus. Keep my $1. :P

    • Judy Unrein

      Hi, Steve! Support for new HTML5 tags in IE6 is, of course, pretty much nonexistent. In fact, if you have clients on IE, you’re not going to want to use much HTML5 stuff until they’re on IE 9. I adapted some content from http://html5readiness.com/ in a presentation that I give on elearning and HTML5 here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/48254035/HTML5-Are-We-There-Yet (slide 22)… This chart takes some of the features I’m watching most closely because of their applicability to elearning and shows which browsers support them (again, focusing on the ones elearning developers need to be most concerned about).

      However, assuming that your client had a modern browser, the video project you’ve outlined sounds pretty doable. See this page: http://isithackday.com/syncing-video/ for an example of video synchronizing with on-page content. In fact, unless I’m completely misunderstanding the requirements, it sounds like this could actually be done without synchronization, by splitting the video up into shorter videos.

      Authoring tools and general skill level for HTML5 are definitely not there yet. I’m trying to keep the elearning industry informed about HTML5 development tools and we’re getting more and more cropping up, but there’s no doubt that they’re still in infancy compared to Flash tools.

      Thanks so much for stopping by! Let me know if you want to discuss the video issue further… I’d love to understand more about the project.

  • Steve

    I agree that this *could* be broken up into smaller components. But this doesn’t necessarily offer the same user experience. Changing the aesthetic / experience changes the aesthetic / experience. Sometimes this matters, sometimes it doesn’t (I’d wager it matters less than we think it does in cases where we care the most and more than we think it does in cases where we care the least).

    One of the things that really bugs me about the hard-over crowd that says “you could do that in HTML5″ are the comparisons that would completely change the essence of the solution. To balance that, it bugs me just as much when folks on the other side of the pendulum swing insist on doing stuff in Flash that really isn’t necessary. There is a balance and that balance should consider the whole experience, quality of output, efficacy of comparable outputs, and the effort it takes to reach each output. Most of the arguments I’ve seen for one tech or the other ignore one or all of these in favor of the cognitive bias of the moment.

    I’m really excited about HTML5 and can’t wait for it to stabilize and produce market support for more consistent development. But we really aren’t there yet.

  • http://www.facebook.com/sonofaglitch Allen Gee

    I can’t access the 3d stack, so my 3D anatomy program will have to wait. I can make a more crude version in HTML5 sure, but it won’t be what I originally envisioned when I was planning it.

  • http://www.facebook.com/sonofaglitch Allen Gee

    http://active.tutsplus.com/articles/roundups/10-flash-things-you-can%E2%80%99t-do-with-html5/

    Of course there are always those reasons. The last one is no longer true as far as I know, you can make HTML5 fullscreen, I believe Voice Central Blackswan demonstrates that. (GV iphone app)