Doddle - Closing of Doddle platform

[willtech]

Not sure if anyone is running Doddle but Important announcement from Doddle

 

Important announcement from Doddle

 

Regrettably, we have announced that we will be closing our Doddle platform over the coming academic year. While customers may continue to use Doddle until then, the service will be unavailable after July 2021.

 

This has been an incredibly difficult decision for us to take, and it is based on the extent of the work required to redevelop our resources given the withdrawal of Flash technology in December.

 

We are very aware of the impact that this will have, and we want to reassure all of our customers that we will do our utmost to minimise the inconvenience this will cause. We will work with our customers over the coming year to ensure a smooth transition.

 

To all of our customers – thank you for choosing Doddle. It has been a pleasure working with so many happy and loyal customers over the last few years.

Edited June 26, 2020 by willtech

[mavhc]

"Last Updated: May 2018"

[Arthur]

This has been an incredibly difficult decision for us to take, and it is based on the extent of the work required to redevelop our resources given the withdrawal of Flash technology in December.

If only Adobe had given them enough notice they would have had time to convert all of their Flash-based resources to HTML5.

 

https://theblog.adobe.com/adobe-flash-update (related thread)

 

The demise of Flash Player has been difficult to predict too.

 

https://www.chromium.org/flash-roadmap

https://blog.chromium.org/2014/11/the-final-countdown-for-npapi.html

https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2015/10/08/npapi-plugins-in-firefox

 

There's absolutely no way Boardworks could have foreseen this happening when they launched Doodle in 2012.

 

https://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2011/11/flash-focus.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughts_on_Flash

[mavhc]

It's boardworks? so they just converted all their old stuff to the web, they've not done any real work for 10 years I bet.

[dmartin1018]

What are people planning to do who use doddle? What alternatives are out there and what is peoples experience with them? We have an AHT who leads on doddle for our school and he's received this notification and claims that there's some functionality within doddle that other platforms don't have such as the PLCs. I don't know the ins and outs because I don't use it as a student or a teacher but just wanted to get some thoughts from people?

[Ditto]

"Last Updated: May 2018"

I wonder if it's just the update page that is out of date. Elsewhere they have made a Covid statement which is clearly more recent.

[Ditto]

What are people planning to do who use doddle? What alternatives are out there and what is peoples experience with them? We have an AHT who leads on doddle for our school and he's received this notification and claims that there's some functionality within doddle that other platforms don't have such as the PLCs. I don't know the ins and outs because I don't use it as a student or a teacher but just wanted to get some thoughts from people?

This is the important question for schools - my last employer (Secondary) were Doddle subscribers. When Doddle say they - 'will do out utmost to minimise the inconvenience...', what in practical terms does that mean? Can they recommend an equivalent alternative?

 

I wonder if any companies would be interested in buying the product and migrating from Flash themselves. GL Education took over Boardworks a few years ago and Boardworks wages more than halved in 2018 accounts where they reversed a large loss to roughly equivalent profit. It would be interesting to understand the back story in more detail.

[mavhc]

I wonder if it's just the update page that is out of date. Elsewhere they have made a Covid statement which is clearly more recent.

 

That was from the content update page, so I guess it was about content.

[paulkerton]

It's been 2 years and 50 weeks since the original announcement, and everyone knew it was coming and could see it from a mile off. Steve Jobs died 9 years ago and used to rail against Flash and the issues it had before then. They launched after Jobs died! How did they not take iPad into account 2 years in? It was the HOT thing to have in schools in 2012!

 

I wish I could find some sympathy for them, but I can't.

[simpsonj]

Is Doddle still closing down? That message isn't anywhere on the site that I can see...

 

We are interested in Doddle because of the Doddle progress module, and the fact it breaks down each subject into it's component parts that can be RAG rated, and nothing else I've searched for seems to do that.

[5tu]

As you may know, some resources on Doddle require Flash to run and, from January, Flash will no longer be supported on internet browsers.

 

Over the upcoming break we will be rolling out an update to Doddle which will mean that all Flash resources will continue to work in the new year, just as before. In January, you or your network manager will need to download a new browser for use with Doddle which will be able to support this content fully. We will send you details of how to do this first thing in the new year.

 

Alongside this fix, our editorial team are still working on updating the most used Flash resources to HTML. This will make them more user-friendly, more up-to-date and ensure that they can be used on any browser or device.

 

Until then, we hope you have a lovely break.

 

You can shove your unspecified, insecure “browser” where the sun doesn’t shine.

 

This isn’t an acceptable “solution” to your failure to plan a transition away from flash.

Edited December 17, 2020 by gybe78

[elsiegee40]

You can shove your unspecified, insecure “browser” where the sun doesn’t shine.

 

This isn’t an acceptable “solution” to your failure to plan a transition away from flash.

 

So that’s a “No” then?

 

[emoji23]

[5tu]

🤣[emoji23]🤣

[elsiegee40]

Blocker [emoji849][emoji23] Edited December 17, 2020 by elsiegee40

[3s-gtech]

Predicts a UAC prompt each time the ‘browser’ is run:

 

“You have to turn UAC off or make your users local administrators!”

 

Where did you find that statement you quoted above?

[5tu]

Where did you find that statement you quoted above?

 

In an email I received from Doddle this afternoon.....

[5tu]

Blocker [emoji849][emoji23]

 

 

Now that's just rude!!

[psydii]

TBF site specific browsers with a 3rd party supported release of Flash is actually Adobe's recommended transition strategy for LoB apps that are uneconomic to migrate to modern technologies.

 

As long as the browser is locked to their sites, and cannot be called via other browsers or OS api's it's a reasonable stop-gap.

 

https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/enterprise-end-of-life.html

 

"For enterprise customers that need help transitioning their Flash content to other supported technologies or require Flash Player licensing support after the EOL Date, please contact our official distribution licensing partner, HARMAN, for more information about their commercial support offerings.

...

Potential services provided by HARMAN may include, but are not limited to:

...

Creating custom downloadable applications that will load specified Flash content for end user distribution.

..."

[synaesthesia]

That sort of thing is generally left for mission critical systems - Doddle is far, far from that.

[psydii]

That sort of thing is generally left for mission critical systems - Doddle is far, far from that.

 

Some teachers would dispute that.

[Brimstone]

TBF site specific browsers with a 3rd party supported release of Flash is actually Adobe's recommended transition strategy for LoB apps that are uneconomic to migrate to modern technologies.

 

As long as the browser is locked to their sites, and cannot be called via other browsers or OS api's it's a reasonable stop-gap.

 

https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/enterprise-end-of-life.html

 

"For enterprise customers that need help transitioning their Flash content to other supported technologies or require Flash Player licensing support after the EOL Date, please contact our official distribution licensing partner, HARMAN, for more information about their commercial support offerings.

...

Potential services provided by HARMAN may include, but are not limited to:

...

Creating custom downloadable applications that will load specified Flash content for end user distribution.

..."

 

Sounds like putting a square peg in a round hole. An over complex solution that will break as soon as any software update is applied.

[msi_school]

Sounds like putting a square peg in a round hole. An over complex solution that will break as soon as any software update is applied.

 

Well yes but they can blame any problems on you and continue to monetize their content.