My 2nd Class: Digital Media and Education Applications

When I read the syllabus about this class and realized that the "Education Application" we were using was going to be Flash, I wrote to the instructor, Emily Wray.

"Hi Emily,

i'm here at Full Sail to learn new things and be at the cutting edge of eLearning. I sincerely apologize, but Flash is dated and in my opinion, on the way out. I believe that more and more iPads will start replacing textbooks and become more and more prominent in schools. See THIS. As I'm sure you know, Flash is not supported on Apple iPhones, iPads or iPods, which are THE most popular devices in the hands of our youth today. It just doesn't make sense to me to spend a month creating Flash animations or exercises when HTML 5 is quickly replacing it and the most prominent devices don't support it. I agree with Steve Jobs. The plug-in is buggy, requires people to download 3rd party software and it frequently crashes my computer. More and more sites are removing Flash, so why is this class teaching a soon to be irrelevant piece of software?

I sincerely want this program to be the very best it can be and I don't mean to come across as just complaining without good intentions. But I feel that this class should be using Adobe Captivate and Camtasia and maybe some Keynote which can then be posted to iWeb. I feel that teaching Flash to educators is a waste of our time and our money and I would guess that most people in the program don't realize it. I'm concerned that the Full Sail instructors are simply teaching what they know rather than innovating their curriculums each class to change and include the latest cutting edge solutions for eLearning. Blogging and Google Docs and Flash were cutting edge 4 years ago.

I would like to work on my own and learn Adobe Captivate and create my own project with other tools rather than spend a month re-learning Flash. Whatever I can do to help you or any of my instructors move into more cutting edge eLearning tools for the benefit of all of us, I am more than happy to help. I really hope you understand my concerns.

Please let me know how to proceed with this class.

Thanks so much,

Gina Fant-Saez"

I received this note back from Emily:

"Hi Gina,

Thank you for your email and for the concerns you raised about using Flash
this month.

Because your email addressed issues outside the scope of my purview as
Associate Course Director for Digital Media and Education Applications
(DAE), I shared your thoughts with Lisa Smith, DAE Course Director and Dr.
Holly Ludgate, EMDT Program Director. You will be receiving a response from
them as well.

The foundation of the EMDT program is project based learning in a
constructivist environment. We are guided in our belief that learning and
achievement will run deeper if it is meaningful to the learner, either
personally or professionally.

That said, you have indicated a desire to explore Adobe Captivate in
creating interactive multimedia courseware this month. As long as you are
able to meet the objectives in the rubric, I feel comfortable with you
adapting the course assignments using this tool.

Now that you have access to the course assignments via FSO, please review
them and submit a proposal of how you'd like to use Adobe Captivate as a
substitute for Flash.

I look forward to a great month and hope that your exploration of Captivate
will be both meaningful and challenging.

Emily"

Does her response make any sense to you? How does it address the issue of teaching Flash to Educators?