Pure on-line learning isn’t working as well as we (or at least I) hoped it would.  So I decided to merge on-line and “offline” learning by creating an app that allows a teacher to record a pupils piece of physical work (drawing, writing, sculpture etc.), grade it then send it up to their e-portfolio.  All from their mobile phone, using free and open source and open source software.

Classdroid is very much in its infancy as an application and the likelihood is we will maintain a free/light version whilst working on a premium version.

The idea came from working in primary schools during art lessons and running a school blog service at the same time (Primaryblogger).  The mash up is obvious and feels natural.  It saves the need to pick up a digital camera, copy the file to the computer, upload it, type in the pupils name etc.  Now its done with just 3 clicks on the device and boom, job done.

I wrote the flow/design etc. & I worked with an Indian Java programmer, he cost me $100 for the entire project.  I also worked with an artist in Bangkok for the logo.  If anyone wants contact with the 2 people I work with please get in touch so I can ask their permission first.  The whole project is an international affair, most of our beta testers are in the US.  Kudos though to Kumar and Teekatas for their hard work.  The Classdroid page shows how I designed the software (Designed the UI first) and this page shows the software flow.

I used the already available wordpress android source and application hook calls (allowed me to easily get the URI of the blog returned from the RPC XML Wordpress server).

We decided not to use App inventor because we needed camera SDK access and the previously mentioned Wordpress source.

Currently the app works with Wordpress and Project XParena; Moodle support is coming with version 2 of Moodle assuming they get the WSDL implementation right.  I’m not holding my breath.

Frog (Frogtrade) have expressed an interest and so have fronter.  Essentially they can just fork the app for their specific distro (it will literally be a case of changing a few strings in the source code then compiling).

The iPhone app is due as soon as apple owners grow up and persuade their arch daemon leader to allow development off the apple platform.  Until then apple people can just grow green in the face as FOSS kicks their butt.

There is some more info at http://mclear.co.uk/sites/classdroid

Please do download / play / test / break and let me know.

PS. the clever bit of the actual tool is the way it can upload to multiple locations and link the objects..  Try upload to Project XPArena too and watch how it links the score/grade to the object.  Cleverness isn’t the bulk of the software though, simplicity and ease of use is.