The Death of Flash

 

Halloween is over, but this post will focus on a bit of the macabre. On December 31, Flash Player will reach End of Life (EOL). This announcement was officially made back in July of 2017 by Adobe in order to give developers and programmers a chance to make the needed updates. The vast majority of websites and browsers have already made the transitions, but there are many that have not. Unfortunately, many educational websites fall into the group that have not updated. That means that after December 31, if the sites haven’t updated they will not work. In other words, when Flash dies, so will those sites.

 

Top 3 ways this will hurt educators.

1. Older online textbook resources rely heavily on flash. These resources will cease to work after EOL of Flash. Publishers for the most part will not update the older versions of their content as a way to force districts to purchase newer versions.
2. Many educational games and simulations were made with Flash. Throughout the years, educators have created wonderful Flash based resources that teachers have made a regular part of their instruction. These games and simulations will no longer work after EOL of Flash.
3. Lastly some old school web developers use flash to make their webpage more interactive or engaging. Most or all functionality of these sites will cease to work after the EOL of Flash.

 

What you should do before December 31, 2020?

1. Go through your assignments and bookmarks to find any flash related content that you currently rely on.
2. Search for alternatives that do not require flash. There are a lot of great games, simulations, and resources that don’t use flash. If a site doesn’t ask you to allow Flash, it most likely doesn’t use Flash.
3. Bookmark these resources so you can easily find them later and share them with other teachers.

 

DO NOT use an extension or 3^rd party program to run old Flash content. This is a great way to get malicious programs on your computer.

 

For more information, visit the Flash EOL Page or watch the video below.