MOE Innergy Awards 2019 Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Android and iOS Apps

MOE Innergy Awards 2019 Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Android and iOS Apps

Educational Technology Division
Lawrence WEE
THONG Chee Hing
Academy of Singapore Teachers
Theresa HENG

Summary

Primary Math interactive Android and iOS Apps were designed and developed by MOE Specialists using 6 ‘free’ softwares Node.js, Cordova, IonicFramework, EasyJavaScriptSimulation, Android Studio and Xcode. We developed Do-It-Yourself (DIY) interactive Android and iOS Apps for teachers at a reduced cost of $1875 instead of $20000 per App.
The team’s motivation was to provide engaging, free-to-use digital manipulative for Primary Math students because physical manipulative are expensive and labor intensive to make, distribute and maintain.
This innovation marks the first time any MOE specialist is able to develop apps in-house and efficiently deploy both Android and iOS Primary Math Apps (two separate ecosystems) with ease of upgrading Apps at very low financial cost. These Apps are already deployed and used in the Student Learning Space (SLS).

1. Innovativeness of Solution (30%)

a) Concrete learning experiences are vital in helping young children understand and grasp Math concepts. However, Flash based MOE interactive digital resources often used for concrete learning experiences, would need to be redeveloped in JavaScript in order to run on students’ Android and iOS devices.

b) This project is bold because it was very difficult to develop the same native apps on 2 separate mobile platforms. Thus, we developed HTML5 interactive that, when used together with Node.js, Cordova, IonicFramework, EasyJavaScriptSimulation, Android Studio and Xcode technologies, can publish Android and iOS Web apps using the same source code base. Making 8 Primary Math Apps for Android and another 8 iOS apps has made it extremely accessible for students and school’s mobile devices to update the apps, mitigate the weak WiFi in classroom problem, and resulting in students explore these Math concepts in a concrete and relatable way. Our HTML 5 interactive resources have also been uploaded to Student Learning Space, a feat not achieved by other MOE app yet.

2. Idea Generation and Development (25%)

i) Learning from failures of asking vendors to add features, bug fixing and unlimited versioning, would have been costly, estimated cost (8 Android+8 iOS)x$20 000= $360 000. We use Node.js to run command line to get Cordova and IonicFramework that builds Mobile apps with HTML, CSS & JS, EasyJavaScriptSimulation to develop what the simulation should do for teaching and learning, Android Studio and Xcode to package the Apps for the respective App stores. Thus, DIY is the fastest (4 weeks), infinite versioning and cheapest ($1875 per app compared to $20 000).

ii) Productivity tools used is our Apps are open sourced on Github.
As for the App design, we used Direct Instruction and Self Directed principles were used. Teacher Mode would show clear visuals to support teacher’s explanation and Student Mode would allow exploration of what-if-scenarios and game score mechanism

b) i) Students and Teachers wanted Apps that work on hand-phones, no password. [5%]; collaborate with AST to spread the project and created more card games (tic tac toe add to 15) Apps for Master Teacher’s Chapter networking [5%]

3. Benefits to stakeholders (25%)

Extensive reach - 22,000 Android, 37,000 iOS installation
Time-saving - students can practice Math concepts anywhere, anytime
Cost-saving - $30,000 for 16 Apps (future Apps could cost as little as $1875)
Higher accuracy, from teachers’ ideas to MOE specialist App prototype
Highly customisable to teacher and students’ needs - as a result there is strong teacher buy-in to implement lessons with Apps
Students can easily download Apps and learn with parents and siblings

4. Efficiency/ Effectiveness of Solution (20%)

Cost = $29 200 (Research Assistants RA), yearly Apple License ($150) Lifetime Google License ($50), yearly web server $600, total = $30000. Therefore, $30 000  /16 Apps = $1875 per App.
Benefits outweighs initial cost because it is faster(30 days vs 180 days), cheaper($1875 vs $20000), better quality (see 8 apps screenshots) and free upgrades/maintenance.
Our step by step documentation for Android and iOS is openly shared.
Get ETD management to endorse this as a core service provided by MOE-HQ to school teachers. Teachers are already asking so we made more recently beyond the SSTRF funding!!

MOE Innergy Awards 2019 Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Android and iOS Apps Educational Technology Division Lawrence WEE THONG Chee Hing Academy of Singapore Teachers Theresa HENG