Moodle 2 for mobile

Moodle 2.0

This document has for purpose to define the official Moodle mobile application functionalities for Moodle 2.0. We will look to mobile phone application only.

Overview

In this section we list which systems is going to be supported by the official Moodle app. We also list the available applications on these systems.

Apple iOS

The offical Moodle application should work on iPhone 3G. It seems Apple doesn't allow to publish new app other than iOS4 on the app store, it needs to be confirmed. There are two known applications on the Apple app store:

• MTouch created by Ali OzGur (available April 2010) - most likely to parse your Moodle HTML to find matching tag
• mPage created by Mass Media, HK (available May 24, 2010) - require a plugin to be installed on your Moodle site (install some web services).

Other not-Moodle applications:

• iUsask

iPhone related documents:

• Creating Mobile Learning Tutorials for iPhone/iPod Touch

Google Android

You can find a discussion about Moodle on Android in the Moodle.org forum. There is one app for Android 1.5, mPage.

Web applications

The Moodle app will not be a web application. However you can find several web projects connecting to Moodle , including:

• iPhone4Moodle
• Moodle for Mobiles: MoMo (discontinued)
• mTouch-U
• Moodbile
• MLE-Moodle - MLE-Moodle is a plugin for Moodle, which adds mLearning functionality to this open-source eLearning system.

(Note: I didn't test them all. If your login/password is required you must trust these sites.)

Use cases

The Moodle app has not for objective to translate the web UI into native UI. It has for objective to quick a quicker access to some functions. It should also use the phone capabilities (GPS, camera, gyroscope). Here are listed the use cases that could be implemented on a mobile device. It should also list some rejected use cases.

Quick

When waiting in a small queue, short travel (bus). These situations don't allow a full concentration. Users are most likely going to do read-only action, that are going to be interrupted at any moment.

All users

• take a photo/video and send it to your private file: "I'm building a Moodle course for my astrology thesis. During my holidays I see some magnificient shooting stars. I open the Moodle app, click on the camera icon and I save quickly some picture for later."
• read new messages from other people (private and forum): "My iPhone alert of a new private message (I can see the 200 first character). I click on the read button, the Moodle app open with the message displayed."

Student

• see my grades (limited view): "My parents want to see my week results. Touch the grade button, my last grades are displayed. My parents can be confident to know about all my results."

Teacher

• see list of my students per course: ...
• see grades (limited view): "I'm at a parent meeting. I quickly have look to the student grades before to speak."
• check activities/assignements deadlines, with number of missing submissions: "I receive an alert. There is too many late submission. I decide to push back the date with a bonus of 25% for not late submissions".

Long

When waiting to be called for the doctor, long travel. These situation allow the user to be concentrate.

All users

• take a photo/video and post as attachment to a forum for discussion: "During a ballad I discover a unknown mineral. I take a picture, select my mineral forum, I write a question about this rock, and press send. Maybe my teacher will know and I hope to receive quickly an alert message."
• take a photo/video and post to a database activity (including location): "I'm a teacher, I brought the student to the zoo. I ask them to take some picture (open app, click on camera icon and save in the database), they comment why they took the picture and send it to the database. The day after will we will have a look to the more interesting pictures." - read this blog post
• answer a message: "My iPhone alert of a new private message (I can see the 200 first character). I click on the read button, the Moodle app open, I can answer on the same screen."

Teacher

• give grades if it doesn't require much effort: "I'm a teacher of Spanish as second language. I asked the students to translate 10 lines in Spanish. I receive an alert on my iPhone. The student name, submission date, and her ten lines are displayed. I could browse other student submission on another screen but I know she did the best. I press A+ and confirm."
• download all assignments (eg pdfs), grade them offline, send back to students: "This time I asked my students to translate 1000 lines. I'm not that much interested to receive an alert for every submissions. At home, during the weekend, I open the Mobile app and download all new assignment submission by wifi. Then I go to beach and I read and grade the two new assignment a B+. Coming back to home to I receive a timed alert telling me that I should send the grades. I open the app and press send."

Urgent

These use cases are required actions following the reception of an alert. They can be executed in a short time and they should have the full attention of the user. Even interrupted, the user is likely going to come back to it.

Student

• see my activities/assignements deadlines, specially the close ones
• alert for resource update
• alert for new resource/activity

Teacher

• see new submissions

Settings and feature

• a switch to go from a Moodle Teacher app to Moodle student app, first time app is launching, select teacher or student / our implement two different app
• display a dashboard of the needs
• Update a location field in the profile with current location, for display with Google map
• Synch the participants of a course so we can have nice choose-lists of users in the app, like Contacts app or Coverflow

See also

• Using Moodle mobile forum
• Moodle mobile FAQ
• Moodle for mobile
• The UCLA model for web apps