pipwerks

I just converted my AS2 SCORM class to AS3.

Read documentation and download file(s) here.

I just finished an ActionScript 2.0 class file meant to be a companion to my JavaScript SCORM API wrapper. It includes a bunch of type checking, type conversion, and error-checking, and works with both SCORM 1.2 and 2004.

Found a small bug when using the wrapper with Flash (AS2): functions that return string values (such as SCORM.data.get()) were coming out ‘undefined’. (grr)

Explicitly typing the return value as a string seems to make Flash happy.

Some small edits to the wrapper:

Fixed a few typos in debug statements
Added extra error-checking during SCORM.connection.initialize; if connection cannot be made AND no error code is given, display notice that server has not responded.

Related links:

Original SCORM API Wrapper journal entry
pipwerks.com SCORM page

Buckle your seatbelts, you may not like this statement: Most eLearning tools do not promote the creation of effective courses, do not promote web standards, and do not promote accessibility; they merely make cookie-cutter course development easier for technically inexperienced course developers.

There, I’ve said it. Please don’t hate me.

I’ve been a longtime user of the ADL wrapper (with code from the late Claude Ostyn), and to be honest, it’s pretty much met my needs. But I was never completely comfortable with the wrapper for two reasons: 1) The code is hard to read with confusing and overly complicated looking variable names, and 2) the code made heavy use of global variables, which in this Web 2.0 world is a big no-no. This past week I decided to roll up my sleeves and make a new SCORM API wrapper that takes care of these issues.

Folks, it’s simple — if you have to paste a “this site works best with XXX browser” message on your site, whether it’s an LMS, an online course, or just a website for your mom’s knitting club, you’re doing something wrong. Do us a favor and stop it.

Just thought I’d pass this link on: http://www.assistiveware.com/videos.php (short write-up here — thanks to Roger Johansson for the link.)

These are video profiles of people with disabilities — mild to severe — who use assistive computer technology to improve their lives. Some people use the computers to simply help them with their jobs (such as a blind person who is a professional French-to-English translator), while others use their computers as a lifeline to the rest of the world.
[...]
Armed with a basic understanding of accessibility, and with a little planning, a web developer can create courses and/or websites that contain rich content — even Flash movies and videos — while supporting a majority of assistive computer/alternative web browsing technologies.

For the last week, I’ve been doggedly attempting to create a hybrid of Flash-to-JavaScript communication techniques for creating cross-browser SCORM-conformant courses that work with almost any version of Flash Player. Today I threw in the towel. Here’s my story.

Every now and then, a developer will come up against something that was SOOOO easy with table-based layouts and winds up being a royal pain with CSS-based layouts. One of these “d’oh!” moments is when you try to vertically center an element on your web page. Umm… hang on, let me rephrase that: One of these “d’oh!” moments is when you try to vertically center an element on your web page when using Internet Explorer 6.