It has been possible for some time now (since the release of Flash Player 9.0.115 in December ‘07) to play High Definition (HD) video using Flash. This is due to it’s support of the H.264 video codec (a standard for encoding videos).

However, few mainstream video websites have taken advantage of this - probably due to the larger video files that are needed and the average speed of a users broadband connection making them slow to download. That is, until recently. Back in December, YouTube announced full support for HD on their site, allowing users to upload HD videos. Then, just this week, both BBC iPlayer and the Amazon Video on Demand service announced that they are also offering an HD option.

This is great news, as web video has been tradionally dismissed due to it’s poor quality. Now with these big players adopting HD format, we can start using it for our own projects. Users will become increasingly familiar with great quality video on the web, shifting the opinion towards it.

This is also good news for the education sector, meaning they can start to put more and more video online, instead of sending out DVDs. This will make it easier (and cheaper) to deliver content to even more people.

For a while now, Becta have been trying to establish a common file format for Interactive Whiteboard content. Having spoken to both Promethean and Smart at the BETT show however, they didn’t seem to think it was a brilliant idea given that a common file format will always be the lowest common denominator across all platforms, and hence the functionality offered would be greatly reduced.

That said, Becta have now managed to sign up all of the major whiteboard manufacturers, and even have European support for the standard. Having looked through the technical specification, it does look rather limited. What it should be useful for though is making it easier to create downloadable versions of our flash content, as this is able to be embedded as a media object using the new standard, so allowing users of all IWB’s to access our activities.

All we need to do now is wait for the manufacturers to start supporting the standard, and away we go!

Some time ago I was asked by the directors here at IE to explain what Flex was, how it was different to Flash, and why I had been using it in some of our interactive projects. My initial attempt, off the top of my head, was poor - I quickly discovered that it’s not an easy concept to explain!

I was encouraged, therefore, to see that Adobe have also realised that it is confusing to those who aren’t geeked-up on all things Flash, and relaunced the Flash Platform label at their Max conference last week. The Flash Platform brings together all the different technologies that contribute to Flash-based projects, as shown in this handy diagram.

So having failed to explain it properly the first time, I did then go away and think about it and wrote an explanation of the way I understand it, which I have copied below. I seem to have unwittingly explained some of the other parts of the Flash Platform as well.

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How wonderful to see the TES giving top level exposure to the use of banned technologies in the classroom. And I’m not talking about tasers, CS gas or pepper sprays as implements for controlling undesirable behaviour in the classroom.

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“So the next time you get hopelessly stuck in a game, remember - it’s not your fault. You’ve simply been badly taught by the designer.”

So says Keith Stuart in today’s Guardian. That’s hardly rocket science, nor the suggestion that gaming environments should reward curiosity and creativity, and similarly a general flow of bite-sized learning opportunities. But Keith is absolutely right in bringing this point to the fore -  as gaming development has perhaps reached adolescence there is still a lot of awful stuff out there, but at least we’re in an age where the potential for “serious gaming” is being realised. Its absolutely clear that what is taken for granted in a well structured, traditional learning experience/classroom environment could be easily and meritoriously transferred to game design. Depending upon your viewpoint, the opposite could equally be applied!

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