Kolibri already provides a great user experience on all tablet devices, by connecting through a web browser to a server in a learning environment. To provide greater support to models where learners are not in proximity of a server, we’re excited to report that our our efforts to create an Android app that brings the full Kolibri experience are finally coming to fruition.
As we continue to fine tune the app for public release, we are interested in your thoughts on how you would like to use an Android app. This includes:
Implementation cases (e.g., to let learners take Kolibri home and if so, how much ownership and control should students have over the content they bring home)
Hardware models (e.g., to distribute Kolibri in places where setting up a server would be impractical)
Coach needs (e.g., how would you want to use coach tools to look at data from multiple Kolibri Android installations)
We are anxiously awaiting the release of the Android app.
One use we have had some experience with is to equip the students competing in the Honduran Math Olympics. In the absence of having the Android version available, we used very inexpensive RCA cambio windows tablets. The competition coaches used the tablets to augment the structured review. Our kids did well and were over represented in medals versus the competition population. So we believe this works and will deploy a set of Android Kolibri again this year and with reduced cost versus windows, we will be able to support more students.
We are ready to support “tablets at home” in our bilingual school. We are still working out the details of security of the tablets. We are loading Honduran texts into Kolibri and so this will be the provisioned content. We will also provide other standard Android education apps for English instruction and reading. So our thinking at the moment is to provide standard curriculum, but we will learn from the student usage and interest as we go through the school year which for us begins in February.
We are working with parent groups to understand the interest for higher achieving students to be provided tablets. The norm in Honduran schools is to run the classrooms to the speed of the slowest student, thus often only half of the required text is covered during a school year
W.r.t. learners taking Kolibri home via Kolibri Android app -
IMO, content should be limited to what the coaches want them to be exposed to at any given time.
The learners may have complete control to share / propagate it further unless the coach wants to restrict sharing of the same to ensure learners remain focussed with what has been assigned as per their learning tracks or if content licensing is a hindrance.
Not sure if there are plans or feasibility of a coach / admin app separate from a learner centric app as coach app will need many more features where a setup lacks a server.
It will definitely be a boon for places where deploying a server may be difficult/impossible due to electricity/power constraints but at the same time there could be solar powered charging stations for Android tablets.
Once a set of learning resources are synced to a single tablet via an internet or offline server connection, the same may be peer synced to the rest of the tablets.
To start with, the exercises and progress of the learners must be synced back to the coach’s device/server.
The App will be a solution to our current problem of monitoring how learners spend their after school learning time. We help learners to create study timetables and provide them with computers to use at home, but we do not have a reliable way of evaluating and monitoring the Activities they spend most of their time. Lack of data is a serious problem in the struggle to create an effective Education Model.
@lauren do you have an updated ETA for that Android app?
My native app feature wishlist:
-Download media files for offline playback. Not the way the browser version does it, which is to simply store the files in the device’s default Downloads folder where you need to exit Kolibri to play the files, but rather to enable in-app playback while offline, the way a podcast player works. (the open source podcasting app AntennaPod handles this really well, and includes the option of saving media files to an external SD card by default).
-Option to download lessons to device whenever the app detects a wifi connection, the way a podcasting app downloads new episodes when on WiFi (again, AntennaPod has a good implementation)
-Ability to complete exercises while offline
-Syncing of all usage analytics with the server when the device comes back online
If the android version runs as a server, it would mean that:
Single internal battery powered device can act as a server for remote locations which don’t have a reliable power source.
Internal hotspot removes the need for external access point
Therefore resulting in:
A single all in one device that can act as a server and is extremely portable for small setups.
This would make the management of kolibri so easy for non technical people.
As client:
If some of the content can be synced to the client, it would allow users to follow through away from the server on studies and return back and sync their results. (eg kids doing homework at home).
Appreciate what you are doing.
I am taking up 4 x kolibri Raspberry Pis to PNG as to trial on schools (keen to see support for all cores on the pi and a simpler install package for non techies to work through - although current instructions are really good).