Now You Know Blog

Craig Weiss over at the E-Learning 24/7 blog recently took a look at the rapid content authoring tool market, spotting several trends in the directions many tools are moving.

Craig’s list of observations is quite detailed, and we were pleasantly surprised at just how many of the “red hot” features he identifies are already taken care of in Claro.

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It's been quite a year for us here at dominKnow, and we're really quite pumped about the reception that Claro has received in its first eight months.

Just a couple of weeks ago Craig Weiss named Claro as one of his Best of the Best content authoring tools. In fact, Craig described himself as being "stoked" about what he's seen, adding that Claro's authoring functionality "means business".

A few weeks before that Craig also tipped his hat to Claro after seeing the product at DevLearn in Las Vegas. In a post to the E-Learning 24/7 group in LinkedIn, Craig said Claro's "feature set was impressive, the ease of use is there and with items such as an image editor, screen capture, video recording and narration, this really is very slick." Craig also gave Claro kudos as a product that "offers features and capabilities for the non-tech course builder, as well as capabilities for the e-learning developer and ID who is seeking an advanced tool. This product hits both audiences without any hiccups or hitches."

DevLearn was a great event for us, and Claro made some great impressions. Emergent Radio's Brian Dusablon and Judy Unrein singled out Claro as one of the show highlights in their podcast summarizing the conference (the Claro discussion begins around the 9:30 mark). Judy describes Claro as "pretty cool" adding, "I think it has a good balance between ease of use and the capabilities most people want." Here's a listening tip - open a bottle of your favourite beverage to get into the spirit of the podcast!

Judy also included Claro in her article Promising Tools for HTML5 Development in the October edition of Training and Devepmoent Magazine, the monthly publication from the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD). She noted that, "Claro is very easy to use" and has "a few very distinctive and even surprising features".
 
Janet Clarey, senior analyst for Learning & Development at Bersin & Associates liked what she saw in Claro in August, descrybing Claro as "a well thought out and incredibly simple yet powerful solution for enterprise learning" in her blog post Simplicity packaged. Clarey in particular singled out Claro's online review mode - "Love this!" as one of her feature favourites. OVerall, she said Claro is "powerful and simple all rolled up into one. We need more of that in the land of shiny shiny. With a free trial, what’s not to love?"

All of this adds up to some pretty good feeling for our team here at dominKnow. And we're not standing still, either. We've released four updates since Claro's original roll out in April, including some really great features in our update this week. And we're already planning for the next release - no rest for the wicked, eh!

There is no doubt about it, HTML5 is the technology buzzword in e-learning today, but we've found many people are still trying to understand exactly what it is, and what it can do for you.

At dominKnow, we've always believed in providing the tools for authors to create dynamic and engaging e-learning and our authoring environment has always allowed for the creation of HTML content, using complementary technologies like JavaScript and CSS. With the emergence of new mobile platforms like Apple's iOS, Google's Android and RIM's new Blackberry operating system, learners now have the ability to carry advanced web browsers in their pockets, and we've leveraged the elements of the new HTML5 specification to provide a multimedia experience as rich as what can be found on the desktop.

So, what is HTML5?

HTML5 is the name used to refer to the current HTML standard. This standard defines many things, but at a high level it defines:

• New markup elements: These are tags that are new to the syntax of HTML.
• Deprecated and obsolete elements: These are tags that should not be used. Deprecated tags will cause a warning if a validation tool is used to verify the code, obsolete tags will cause code to fail validation completely.
• Web Application APIs: These are the capabilities exposed by the browser to be scripted by content authors using JavaScript. These include the ability to manipulate and interact with the new HTML markup elements, as well as new browser capabilities. It is important to note that the standard does not lay down any specifications for the core JavaScript language, this is governed by the ECMAScript standard http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-262.htm.
• Microdata: This specifies a means for encoding machine-readable labels for the content of the document, which can be exposed in a variety of ways.

There are several other elements of the specification, but these are generally of interest to implementors (those who create and distribute web browsers) and web developers working to build web applications.

Some of the more technically-inclined may notice that CSS isn't mentioned at all, despite the fact that many browsers have newly added support for some very advanced features of that technology. While CSS is used in conjunction with HTML to produce web content, the language is in fact not a part of the HTML standard, but is instead driven by it's own standard. A working draft document on the W3C website describes the status of the modules for the next version, CSS3 http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-roadmap/.

What HTML5 isn't

We have been seeing a lot of confusion in the e-learning space, and much of that confusion seems to revolve around what HTML5 isn't. HTML5 is not:

1. Combining HTML, JavaScript and CSS

   There seems to be an idea that HTML5 is nothing more then combining HTML, JavaScript and CSS in your authored content. I'm not sure where this idea started, but I think there are 2 factors contributing to it's continued existence. The first is the still prevalent idea in e-learning that any interactivity has to be built in Flash, and the second is the positioning of HTML5 as the open-standards successor to Flash. Many content authors still think of HTML as being static content pages, and since HTML5 is the Flash replacement, any interactive HTML content must be HTML5.

   Anyone who has been doing serious web development for the last few years knows this simply is not the case. We have been using all 3 of those technologies together to create interactive non-Flash content for years; there was nothing in the previous version of HTML that prevented us from doing so in any way.

2. Different than HTML

   This is another misconception that I've encountered, the idea that the HTML that has been powering the Web for these many years is somehow a different technology than HTML5. In fact, we've found that people assume any existing HTML content requires a significant effort to upgrade or port to HTML5. The truth is that HTML5 is simply the next version of the HTML standard, and with the exception of a few obsolete elements, the new standard includes everything from the last published standard (HTML 4.01). In fact, a quick example can demonstrate just how easy it is to update existing HTML content:

   First, the 'old' HTML code:

    

   <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4
           .01//EN"    "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd"> 
       <HTML>    
           <HEAD>       
               <TITLE>My first HTML document</TITLE>    
           </HEAD>   
           <BODY>
                   <P>Hello world!</P>
           </BODY>
       </HTML>

    

   Next, the HTML5 version:

    

   <!DOCTYPE html>
       <HTML>    
           <HEAD>       
               <TITLE>My first HTML document</TITLE>    
           </HEAD>   
           <BODY>
                   <P>Hello world!</P>
           </BODY>
       </HTML>

    

   Note the only difference between the 2 is the line starting with <!DOCTYPE. This identifies the type of document that follows, in the first example the document is identified as being HTML 4.01, in the second the new HTML declaration is used. After that, the code is completely identical. This is because the code is perfectly valid in either version of the standard, the most recent version of which can be seen at http://whatwg.org/html

3. Complete

   The current version of the HTML standard is by no means complete. There are 2 places on the web one can view the HTML5 standard, http://whatwg.org/html and http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/, both of which make the point that the draft is not finished. Ian Hickson, the specification editor with the Web Hypertext Applications Technology Working Group, or WHATWG, nicely sums up the reason for the currently incomplete status in a blog post http://blog.whatwg.org/html-is-the-new-html5. In fact it is this ever-changing nature of the standard that prompted the WHATWG to decide to drop numbered versions from the standard, and instead declare the current HTML standard to be a living document. It is still correct to refer to HTML5 as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is still working to create a 'snapshot' specification encompassing HTML5. The HTML5 specification is to be completed in 2014, at which point the W3C will begin working on the next snapshot, currently called HTML.next.

And as the HTML standard continues to evolve, dominKnow will evolve it's authoring technology right along with it.

What does this all mean?

At this point, you might be wondering what HTML5 means to you as an author of learning content. For many, the most exciting new additions are the <audio> and <video> tags. These tags allow web content authors to deliver audio and video files over the web without having to rely on browser plugins. This is especially exciting when developing content for mobile devices, where in many instances common browser plugins such as the Flash Player currently cannot run. While there is still some controversy over the exact format of the files that browsers should support, most mobile browsers use a common encoding format. An excellent dive into the world of the new native media tags can be found at http://www.diveintohtml5.com/video.html. These tags are supported on most of the modern mobile smartphone and tablet platforms, including Apple's iOS, Google's Android, HP's webOS and the latest version of RIM's Blackberry smartphone and their tablet operating systems.

Another new feature that some find exciting is the addition of the <canvas> tag. This tag provides a rich drawing API that can be accessed from JavaScript, providing graphics and animation capabilities that once required Flash. Again, mobile content is the prime area to deploy this new technology as it once again compensates for the lack of the Flash Player on some major mobile platforms.

The advancements in the latest specification of the HTML standard represent an exciting time for everyone involved with creating web content; we are seeing the means for producing ever more engaging and interactive content for our learners. However, it's important to know your audience, as those with older browsers won't have the ability to take advantage of these features. When planning your content, ensure there is a fallback in place for these browsers, so you're content will function for as wide an audience as possible.

These are just a few of the highlights in the new HTML standard. The important point to come away with from this is when evaluating new authoring technologies, simply asking for a 'yes' or 'no' answer on HTML5 as a whole is insufficient. It is important to understand what features are important to you as a developer, and to ask technology vendors about the support of those specific features.

With Claro, our next generation authoring tool, we're committed to taking advantage of as many new HTML features as we can, while still ensuring the content produced will continue to function in older browsers that may not support these new advancements.

Ryan McIlmoyl is Chief Software Architect at dominKnow