A cross-platform e-learning system for smartphones

Abstract

No one can deny that usage of smartphone is on a rising trend in Hong Kong. If we can make use of mobile devices in educational field as taking mobile learning into action, what would the world become? How would teachers and students be affected? A number of teachers hope to utilize smartphone application to deliver their teaching but most of them do not acquire knowledge in mobile application development. To tackle with multiple smartphone platforms is another issue in mobile learning. The objective of this project is to build up a cross-platform mobile learning environment named "Learn@Mobile" with the aid of a mobile application framework called PhoneGap. The main concept is that from a single collection of source code, the application will be built up and deployed on iOS and Android platforms. From teachers’ point of view, they no longer need to worry technical issue in creating mobile application. Their burden can be alleviated that they can focus on teaching activities. For students’ aspect, integration of smartphone and learning would trigger their learning motivation that student can seize the opportunity to learn anywhere, anytime. The application provides two major functionalities that are to let students browse materials and take quizzes. With slideshows in JSON format created by teachers, students can obtain and store these materials in their mobile devices. By local storage with WebSQL database, students can benefit from offline capability to browse these slideshow in HTML5 web container when they are on their way travelling. After a revision of the learning materials, students are able to examine themselves by means of quizzes. These quizzes will also available for download. After completing the quiz, the quiz subsystem will be invoked to handle database management and upload of the answers. Finally, analysis can take place for students’ performance so that teachers can evaluate effectiveness of teaching and learning.