Mobile device support

Moodle 2.6

This pages summarizes development efforts being made as part of the development of Moodle 2.6. Specifically, enhancing the experience for users accessing Moodle via a tablet or smartphone. Mobile devices are now extremely common and Moodle must evolve to allow Moodle users to make full use of their devices.

Priorities

Mobile device support will be an ongoing priority. However to enable us to achieve the greatest impact with finite resources we have decided on the following set of priorities.

Content Before Configuration

It's extremely important that users be able to easily access course content on their various devices. For the time being it is acceptable to require the user to use a desktop or laptop computer to perform site or course configuration. Once we have ensured that users can easily access course content we will move on to improving the mobile experience for admins and users who are creating courses.

1. Students

Students typically outnumber staff by a large margin and have a very high rate of mobile device ownership. "Read" tasks like checking assignment due dates, retrieving grades and accessing course resources must be painless.

2. Teachers

Less numerous than students. They should be able to participate in their courses, for example participating in forum discussions, as well as perform some core activities like grading of assignment submissions. Some areas, most notably the gradebook, may not be optimized for mobile devices until a later release.

3. Admins

Site administration is expected to still be performed primarily on desktop and laptop computers. Mobile optimization of admin tasks may occur in the future but is not a priority for this release.