Educational Systems Content Development

Educational Content Development and Mobile Synchronization Application

Customer

The client is UK based educational company that brings together the experience and expertise of educationalists, learning technologists, and media professionals to consult on a wide range of educational projects. Identified as Yorkshire Forward high growth company, the client has partners who range from government organizations to schools, universities, and other educational services.

Business Case

The customer was looking for an offshore development company experienced in web and mobile development to create a set of tools that would allow the following:

• Create - teachers generates learning using the simple to use 'interactive' mobile content builder. All content is SCORM compliant

• Share - you can choose to share your content into the mobile learning repository and search the repository for content which other teachers have made using the builder. You can also search for 'platinum content' and applications which have been developed by commercial companies. The repository works on LOM standard metadata.

• Deploy - seamlessly deploy the content and applications you have created or found in the repository to your students devices. You can organise students into groups and classes and choose what each group or individual student receives.

• Upload - all students work from their devices is uploaded to their online profile. This includes any results, documents, images, videos, audio etc. This allows students to capture learning at the moment of inspiration which is automatically uploaded. This also creates a backup of each students device.

Challenges

Project completion on time was important for company's competitive advantage and leadership position on the market SoloSoft allocated appropriate resources to review the requirements, develop specification documents, and complete development on time and budget.

Solution

The system is represented with series of tools and applications to enable teachers to create mobile learning objects and activities, share freely in the mobile learning repository alongside premium learning content including Intel skoool» mobile learning content, and seamlessly deploy mobile learning content to learner's remote devices.

All learners files are backed up using m-backup and the upload tool gives online access to mobile files and learning.

Web based content creation tool
The development of a web based content creation tool allows users to create Flash Lite 2.1 educational resources through a simple form fill exercise. Content consists of slides that have the following features:

• Support text, video, audio, and swf animation.
• Can be modified through WYSIWYG editor
• Can be displayed and moved based on user requirements
• Can have various backgrounds and fonts
• If a slide is a test or a questionnaire, the user progress is tracked in a standalone file.

Searchable content repository
Once the created content is submitted to the searchable content repository, the user may tag the content with meta-data. Tags would include: subject, key stage, content level, author information, date created, learning time, and keywords.

Web based management system
The web based management system allows a teacher to select and send multiple content types (Flash Lite created in builder, External Flash Lite Content, Office documents, video, audio, images etc.) and applications (cab files) to a mobile device. The web interface would present all content on the device to both a teacher and a student.

Windows mobile client application
This is a client application that runs on Windows Mobile devices. The application performs synchronization of files between the device and the management system. If the upload / download process is disrupted, the application recommences from the point of disruption.

Tools and Technologies

IIS 6.0, MS SQL Server 2005, ASP.NET 2.0, C#, XML, AJAX, Windows Mobile 5.0, Flash Lite 2.1.