Why HTML5 Is The Future Of eLearning

Why HTML5 Is The Future Of eLearning
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Summary: For a long time, Flash was the gold-standard in producing eLearning courses. Although Flash is still an ever-popular mode of eLearning course creation, there is an ever-increasing wave of eLearning professionals who have chosen HTML5 as the new standard.

5 Reasons Why HTML5 Is The Future Of eLearning

In this article, we’ll discuss reasons for this change, and why HTML5 offers an advantage over other eLearning authoring tools.

1. It’s Mobile-Friendly

Let’s face it, the average learner wants to be able to access eLearning on their mobile devices. The demand for mobile-friendly eLearning courses is only going to increase with time and has already shot up sharply. Flash offers high levels of interactivity, immersive graphics, and engaging animations, but it falters in one aspect. Fewer and fewer smartphones and tablets being manufactured are able to support Flash. HTML5, on the other hand, has always been mobile-friendly and thus, is the new favorite among eLearning professionals. By using HMTL5 authoring tools, these eLearning professionals can adapt their eLearning courses on all screen sizes and even create smart meta-tags that give them the ability to optimize their eLearning course for mobile devices.

2. Greater Accessibility

With increasingly busy lives, the average working individual doesn’t have time to sit in front of a desktop or a laptop to access eLearning. Learners need to have access to eLearning whenever they want it. HTML5 offers the power of creating courses that can be accessed anywhere and whenever the learner feels like. The best part; HTML5 offers offline storage, so learners can download the eLearning course, and then access it whenever they like, without even needing an internet connection!

3. Greater Ease Of Customization

HTML5 is first and foremost, a markup language for the World Wide Web (www). Thus, it is all about presentation and structure. This is exactly why it is extremely flexible and can be customized down to the last detail. It doesn’t have accessibility limitations like Flash, and eLearning professionals can customize the flow of their eLearning content by adapting the viewing panel, which makes it accessible on a variety of different browsers and screen sizes. Also, what makes it so great is the fact that all of these modifications don’t require any external plug-in or program, but can be done by simply tweaking the code! Online applications and courses created with HTML5 automatically work across all browsers, online platforms, and operating systems.

4. It Is Already The New Industry Standard!

If you’re contemplating using HTML5 to create your future eLearning courses, good! If not, let me tell you that you might not have a choice. Not if you want to stay relevant anyway. eLearning professionals all over the world are already using HTML5 to design their eLearning courses, primarily due to the fact that they want to capitalize on all of the aforementioned benefits. Flash will, sooner or later, be left behind and become obsolete.

5. Flash Is On Its Way To Oblivion

As mentioned before, Flash may not stay relevant enough for you to use it, soon. The reasons for this are many, most of which are mentioned above, but in addition, Flash can be easily misused by malware developers, is prone to crashing, and just can't keep up with HTML5 in any way imaginable. This became clear giants such as Apple preferred to stay away from it.

If it's the transition from Flash to HTML5 you're worried about, you don't need to! Although the process of converting all your eLearning content from Flash to HTML5 can seem like an arduous task (which it usually is), there are various companies (like CBLPro), which offer Flash to HTML5 conversion, to whom you can outsource your work. A professional company that has been doing this for quite some time will give much better results than you trying to do it on your own, especially if you're not comfortable with the technology.

So, pat yourself on the back if you’re already using HTML5 to author courses, and start looking into HTML5 eLearning authoring tools if you’re not. HTML5 is the future, and it’s better to embrace it!

Originally published at cblpro.com.