USBeen and gone

Mark Gash laments the loss of old tech

When we were putting together issue 1 of Dirtyword magazine, we wanted to print out a full-sized physical proof, so we could do an oldschool sit down with highlighter pens and look for mistakes. Because although these days we’re all about online learning and working in the cloud, most of us here are are old enough to remember a time before digital; a time when you read things on paper, had to save six month’s pocket money to buy a game cartridge for your NES and waited 2 years to watch the latest movies at home, by renting tapes from the video shop for your parents’ Betamax. Apparently, we fall into a micro-generation called Zennials but that all sounds made up, so you might want to Google it.

Anyway, back to the proof. The Dirtyword office doesn’t have an A3 format printer, so I phoned (yes, I actually dialled the number and spoke to a real person, none of this online chatbot nonsense) a local copy shop, who told me to email the file over - and that’s where the problems began. As you might expect, a print-ready file for a magazine is pretty big and after explaining this to the print bods, they informed me that their email system wouldn’t be able to accept anything over 10MB. No worries, I thought, I’ll use WeTransfer or Google Drive or Dropbox or... “Oooo, Sharon doesn’t know about that.” came the reply. “Could you bring it in on a USB stick?” That seemed like a perfectly reasonable compromise between physical and digital to me, so the agreement was made I would take a USB drive to the print shop that afternoon.

I came off the call full of alacrity (not a common occurrence in our office), ready to transfer 77MB of awesomeness onto the modern marvel known as a USB stick (or thumb-drive to some people. Probably Americans). I knew there must be one kicking around my desk drawer somewhere. Except, for the first time ever, I realised I didn’t have a set of drawers under my desk. “Where have my drawers gone?” I shouted across the office. “We got rid of them last year” someone shouted in reply. “It was when we started hot-desking.” Covid19 has a lot to answer for.

So I searched the trendy lockers we replaced the drawers with but came up empty-handed. There wasn’t even one in the cutlery drawer and that usually contains everything you could ever possibly need, apart from a clean teaspoon. None of my colleagues had one on them either - a couple were certain they had one at home but the youngest had no idea what I was on about. This was getting ridiculous, so I hatched an equally ridiculous plan to take my laptop to Morrisons, buy a USB stick, transfer the files over whilst sat in my car, then take the stick to the printers.

Except Morrisons doesn’t sell USB sticks. Neither does Tesco, B&M or the Range. At this point, I felt like I had entered a parallel universe, where the USB stick had never been invented. I wasn’t going to let it beat me though - I had driven all the way to town with a plan to transfer files and return to the office with a printed copy of the magazine, and that is exactly what I would do. So I dropped sixty quid on a 1TB portable hard drive and returned triumphantly to the car, ready to do the deed. It was then that I discovered my MacBook Pro doesn’t have a USB port. Sigh.

Sometimes, we get so caught up in the day-to-day, that things pass us by and we don’t notice new e-learning tech creeping in, or tech we’re sure will be around forever, becoming obsolete. Here are a few of our favourites, that have either disappeared or are a shoo-in for the chopping block very soon.

Flash

For me, and many other e-learning designers, one of the best tools for creating engaging content was Flash. It allowed developers to create fantasticlooking interactive multimedia content. It supported vector graphics, animations, and audio, making it suitable for creating engaging and dynamic web experiences. It worked across all major browsers and its animation features meant you could make e-learning that looked like something you’d watch on Cartoon Network back in the day. Then, just like USB sticks, it was gone in a… well, you get the idea.

Apparently, Apple was responsible for killing it off because it didn’t work on iPhones and iPads. There were also security vulnerabilities and the fact that anything made in Flash tended to have massive file sizes, so not great for mobile data. Due to these drawbacks and the evolving landscape of web standards, major web browsers and technology companies started phasing out support for Flash. Adobe officially discontinued Flash Player in December 2020, encouraging developers to transition to more modern web technologies like HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript for multimedia content and interactivity. Sad times.

Scorm

One of the most used, and oldest, e-learning course formats is SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model). A set of standards for e-learning that allows content to be packaged and shared across different learning management systems, SCORM is still widely used even though it’s been kicking around for a good 20+ years. It was developed in an era of desktop e-learning, so isn’t great on mobile and whilst it can report on basic data like completions and scores, it can’t track the more granular data that every client has an insatiable need to fill spreadsheets with these days. SCORMS tend to be linear affairs, so the format isn’t suited to more open-ended, non-linear learning pathways that the industry is moving toward. If that’s what you’re looking for, you’ll want to investigate newer standards like xAPI (Experience API) cmi5, and LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability).

Whiteboards

Interactive whiteboards, which allowed instructors to display and annotate digital content, were once a common fixture in classrooms and e-learning environments. However, they have become less prevalent with the rise of tablet computers and other mobile devices that offer similar functionality. Notorious for lag and usability issues, teachers slap them so hard trying to trigger buttons and page swipes that the ones that still inhabit classrooms can’t have much life left in them.

Powerpoint

Dig back even further into the mists of e-learning history and you’ll discover that online courses used to just be presented as static text with a few images and a lozenge button at the bottom of the page that read “Next”. I’m sure that as an e-learning professional, your own content is dynamic, engaging and brimming over with interactivity and you’d be surprised to hear that we still have a handful of clients that cling to the “old ways”. Death-By-Powerpoint is sadly very much alive in the online learning world; and not the sexy newfeatured Powerpoint either - we’re talking slides of badly formatted text and pixelated images that are sized to an A4 aspect ratio just perfect for printing out on a 2005 model HP inkjet. Unfortunately, there’s little that can be done to change the mindset of trainers and educators who still work this way - all we can hope is that, like the USB stick, they eventually become extinct themselves.

Are you still using an archaic technology to create your e-learning? We’d love to know what and why!

Tell us more at info@dirtywordmag.com