DevLearn and the Adobe Learning Summit!

DevLearn and the Adobe Learning Summit! This is quite possibly one of the coolest things I've seen in my eLearning career. And that's an industry leading software company focusing a major effort on the eLearning industry and the many elearning developers that have been using their tools to improve the learning process for so many.

I was a very early user of Authorware, Director, and of course, FLASH. I can't remember how it happened but I became mostly connected with Director. I truly loved the tool and used it whenever I could. I was involved with the Dir8.5 beta when Intel partnered with Macromedia to get 3D into Director. I had high hopes for that being a critical piece that kept Director in the game...but no such luck. To many of us developers it seemed like a tool destined to die a slow painful death.

At least it felt that way to me. But apparently there are users who have been hanging on all this time still creating cool stuff while waiting patiently for the next release. I recently discovered one of these devoted developers at the Director@Night blog when my Google Alert for eLearning Guild found his blog with this post, Director Pre-Marketing Ramps Up. So of course I checked out his archives and discovered some very cool stuff. He's now in the Google reader.

I seriously don't know any specifics, but its exciting to see the synergy between Adobe and The eLearning Guild. That alone tells me many things about how seriously Adobe is taking the eLearning market. And a new version of Director quite possibly could be positioned as a game changer in the spirit of the iPhone. Ya know everyone's complaining about Flash not being on the iPhone, but maybe Apple's waiting for the new Shockwave? Am I dreaming? Maybe. Maybe not.