Last month I discussed some of the important ideas behind HTML5 eLearning delivery, along with some caveats and limitations. I also covered some of the more popular tools that you can use for publishing eLearning lessons to HTML5.
More eLearning development HTML5 and mobile delivery tools
This month I’m going to focus on more tools, both those that publish to HTML5 eLearning and others that are very useful in the eLearning development process.
Landmark Liquid
Last month I mentioned Landmark Liquid. This is a cloud-based eLearning development tool specifically built to publish to HTML5. It also publishes to Silverlight and supports SCORM 1.2 and 2004, and you have the option of zipping the published files for upload to your LMS. (It does not publish to Flash.) See more at http://landmarkelearning.com/liquid-authoring/.
EAD Builder
Another new cloud-based eLearning development tool comes to us from Brazil and is called EAD Builder. The website is in Portuguese (most browsers give you the option to translate sites automatically now) but the tool has been translated into English. It differs a bit from other tools in that it gives you a library of resources, such as office scenes, characters, and sound files. While the tagline for EAD Builder is Create interactive courses and professional art without programming or drawing, the website does not show any examples of building interactivity that I could see. Learn more at http://eadbuilder.com.br/.
Zenler Studio
I had researched the PowerPoint add-in from Zenler called Zenler Studio a year ago and found it an attractive, low-cost eLearning development tool at the time. Like all PowerPoint add-in tools, it does not compete with more powerful tools but it does a good job of helping you to create simpler eLearning lessons. In August Zenler released version 4.1 of Zenler Studio, and it now publishes to HTML5 as well. See more at www.zenler.com.
Raptivity
I reviewed Raptivity a couple of years ago. Not an eLearning development tool per se, it provides wizards and customization forms to help you build individual interactions, everything from basic tab-order information sheets to games, any of which you can use in a tool such as Captivate, Storyline, or Lectora. While they originally built all Raptivity’s interactions to publish to Flash SWF format, its maker, Harbinger, has worked hard since then to allow for greater customization and for HTML5-published files. You can always use these interactions alone, say on a website, but now you have the choice of importing them into authoring tools as either Flash or HTML5 interactions. See www.raptivity.com.
Brainshark
A tool that is used by many is Brainshark. Geared primarily to sales professionals, it helps them create very nice sales presentations that can be a combination of your PowerPoint files, videos, and other elements that you upload into this cloud-based tool. You can publish to HTML5. See more at http://www.brainshark.com.
DE-Scribe
DE-Scribe has a particular market in mind with its tagline Technologies and Resources for Isolated Church Leaders. Using a tree view and several panels, including Properties, it lets you create basic courses with quiz questions and then output to offline or online use. It does not output to HTML5 but instead uses the jQuery Mobile network to deliver to mobile devices. See http://maflt.org/describe.
VCASMO
VCASMO is focused on delivering to mobile devices and to desktop browsers as well. It publishes to both Flash and to HTML5. Use it to sync videos to PowerPoint slides. It is rather limited for full eLearning development, but for simpler synchronization of video to PowerPoint it works very well. See www.vcasmo.com.
Adobe Edge Animate
Adobe Edge Animate lets you create very cool animations that you can publish to HTML5. It is very feature-rich but it doesn’t take long to get the hang of it. You can have very close control over each element in the animations you create and the results will work in most modern browsers and mobile devices. You can also use the resulting animations in any eLearning tool that lets you insert HTML5-based animations. See http://html.adobe.com/edge/animate/.
The eLearning Brothers
The eLearning Brothers shop is quite well known to many eLearning developers. The company provides a ton of different resources for all major eLearning development tools but also has, as of this writing, 27 different games that publish to HTML5 and 10 different quiz question templates that are HTML5-based. See more at http://elearningtemplates.com.
Rapid Intake
The folks that created Rapid Intake start with instructional templates and then let you add quiz questions and other elements to create eLearning that you can publish to both Flash and to HTML5 using forms. See http://rapidintake.com/mobile.
A rising tide of HTML5 tools: Do your research!
It shouldn’t be too surprising that two years ago you could hardly find a tool that would publish to HTML5 for eLearning purposes and now you can’t turn around without knocking into one. There are more tools coming out, so do your research if you’re looking. You can’t go wrong with a tried-and-true proven tool but there is a lot to be said for newer ones that are built from the ground up with HTML5 delivery in mind. Many, if not most, of the new HTML5 eLearning tools are cloud-based, as I would expect in the future as well.
Feel free to add other tools that I haven’t mentioned last month or this month, and thank you again for your feedback!