Adobe Summit Day 2 - Authorware and the future of e-Learning

Adobe Learning Summit
I finally have an opportunity to sit and live blog. [yes Mark, I know living blogging is soooo 90's ;-)] I'm sitting in the Friday morning session of the Adobe eLearning Summit.
Yesterday was awesome and the reception at Adobe was a blast. GREAT hosts!!! Good people. Can't ask for much more.

Adobe eLearning Solutions
So, Ellen is talking about Authorware and IT's future in eLearning:

6 part plan
1)Business continuity
2)conversion
3)migration
4)enablement
5)develop the next gen leanring content authoring
6)improved communication

Tom KIng will be acting as the Liaison for Adobe and the Authorware community to help this transition process.

Its obvious that the authorware decison was a tough one for adobe. And Silke reminds me that it is NOT end-of-LIFED. For now, its only end-of-development. Because of you, the Authorware community, they are looking into putting some engineering effort into updating the runtime for IE7 and Vista support.

So basically, DON"T PANIC (that's me saying that) ! Just because you shouldn't expect a new version in the future doesn't mean you can't still use and purchase the tool to continue creating killer eLearning apps. With that said, Adobe is actively pursuing #1 above to provide a "soft landing" for its users. The basic idea is that Authorware has been used in the past to be the onsize fits all for elearning development. Adobe is working toward helping the community to see better ways to move some types of content into other tools.

Conversion: Adobe is working with many vendors to facilitate, broker, and enable conversion efforts. Currently, they have reached out and engaged with DazzleTech, SumTotol, Eedo, Atlantic Link, Huric, Eduworks.

Migration: Captivate and Flash for content creation. AIR provides interesting options. Flex is great to some of what Authorware did for you too. The key is that there is NO one solution to fill the gap left by Authorware.
Issues: 1) Migrate "heritage" content. 2) Migrate skills and 3) decision making on new tools as we move forward.
Thermo - ??? PHotoshop plugin - alpha

If you want to have a conversation with Ellen and the Adobe team to discuss all the things Authorware, join their webinar on November 14th on Authorware

Adobe is also putting together an eLearning Advisory Council. This is something that I think will be extremely valuable for the eLearning community. Adobe is a big player and we ALL use at least ONE of their tools to get our jobs done. ADL and AICC will play a role moving forward. AICC.org/blog has great authorware usage data.

Adobe, Adobe, Adobe, - 3 big web moves

Not sure what this means for elearning, but I really like Adobe and so its fun to see them stepping out and taking some big risks with new products and playing in the Web2.0 space a little more.

So read/write web stacked up these three blog posts in my reader this morning:
Adobe Share
Adobe Media Player
Adobe Acquires Virtual Ubiquity - Enters Web Office Fray

I guess Adobe is on my radar because of their Adobe Learning Summit being co-located with DevLearn this year. Seeing big product announcements makes me wonder what fabulous new tools, and/or upgrades, are being prepared for the learning industry.

Adobe Labs - And on a side note read/write web pointed to the Adobe Labs wiki. You can find a link to the media player in the list as well as many other Adobe technologies. Its great to see a good example of a useful corporate wiki.

Image carving - Adobe hires imaging guru - Adobe Learning Summit

Shai Avidan has been hired by Adobe. You've got to watch the video above to understand why this is a VERY cool thing.

I love photoshop and, at times, have spent countless hours "cutting" out elements from a scene and being left with the task of recreating the background into the space left behind. You've GOT to see how easy it is with Shai's technology. Not to mention the amazing ability of stretch and squash an image without distorting the original characteristics of the image. I'm serious! You've got to watch this video. So cool!

Don't forget that the Adobe Learning Summit is co-located with DevLearn2007. An amazing opportunity for eLearning pros and beginners alike to get the latest in learning technologies and methods, AND hang out with the Adobe folks. As you can see, Adobe is up to some exciting stuff. Perhaps by November there will be some killer announcements and new eLearning tools.

This is your "Going into the weekend video". Enjoy!

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.