Warning - yes this is supposed to be deliberately provocative.

Everyone is talking about Google+ at the moment so Adobe Flash has been given a bit of a break by the bloggers and other assorted doom-mongers.

Of course, with the rise of the iPod/iPhone/iPad Flash has been given a good bashing for ages and not even the hilarious advert for the Blackberry PlayBook with the Queen soundtrack stands much chance of stemming the flow:

Don't get me wrong - I love the idea of cross-browser compatibility and the sheer ease of developing content in notepad etc. I'm no Luddite. However, here are 3 reasons why Flash isn't going to die any time soon in educational technology:

1. The virtual learning environment:

I don't know about you but all the institutional VLEs I have used recently have iFrames and Javascript blocked - please tell me it's not the case where you hang out! The only option for a bit of interactivity is an embedded Flash movie.

As we move more inevitably towards personal, mobile devices this is bound to change but this leads me to...

2. The comparative immaturity of the alternatives:

Flash developers can do anything with Flash. If you can create it on a screen, Flash developers can make it into an interactive web app or video or animation or anything you want - and they can do it quickly. How many fully-featured web apps have you seen which are developed entirely in cross-browser, cross device compatible fashion (and I mean running on older browsers as well) - and which will run without javascript in a closed VLE? Maybe not so many as yet...

3. Development problems

We are fast approaching the situation where we need multiple versions of the same e-learning content:

• The Flash version
• The HTML 5 version
• The iOS app
• The Android app
• The Windows Mobile app (don't laugh)
• The Blackberry app

Which one of the above options will run happily on the most platforms/browsers/VLEs?
Do we have unlimited funds?
Which can we afford to do?