This summer I designed a mobile learning organizer app called ClassCaddy to use in my courses. The app is designed specifically to solve an issue I learned about in 2010 on student exit surveys in my mass communication course: mass comm class information overload!
Collecting together the lecture videos, links, tweets, documents, podcasts, announcements, slides and various other digital learning objects in one place is the key to useability, students said.
Easily navigable, clearly organized curation of class tools in one place makes it easier for students to discover and adopt them. But when that “one place” is a LMS window, or my course website then lecture notes compete for attention with a number of open windows including of course Facebook.
Having class resources contained in a dedicated smartphone caddy app should make it easier to focus on the task at, or “in” hand, on demand, even if for short periods of time. As research shows, flexible learning tools like apps can increase quality learning time-on-task.
Having said that, because a key component of any successful app is the ability to connect with friends, ClassCaddy is thoroughly socialized (eg. Facebook/Twitter/Foursquare), and even mildly gamified (eg. leaderboard) to encourage sustained engagement, interactivity, content sharing. These features will increase what researchers call the “social presence” of the app, which is linked to higher outcomes and increased student satisfaction.
Using a CMS approach to app design lets me update the content weekly, in real-time, without having to resubmit the app for approval by Apple.
So far the Android and iOS downloads are tied. For BlackBerry users, I designed a BB-optimized mobile website here.
Adding this app to my iTunesU podcasts, SMS reminder system, and smartphone flashcards, completes my mLearning suite development projects for 2011.
I’ll wait for student feedback to see how well ClassCaddy meets their needs. Of course not all students have smartphones, so all class content is also available on my LMS and course website.
This app was designed with support from PARTEQ Innovations at Queen’s University.
Thank you to Hayley and Annalisa for testing and UX feedback, and to Karl, Jamil and the rest of the MobileRoadie team for great customer service.
Very interested in hearing more about your new app! I’ve pass along this post to a few people who do online courses because I think it would be of great interest to them, too.
Fyi, I did try to download it on the app store but it didn’t install for some reason.
Best,
Debbie Hemley
Hi Debbie, thanks for interest and feedback.
It didn’t install for me the first time I tried to sync and I thought “oh great. NOT!” but the second sync worked. Tech wrinkles…!
Let me know how it goes okay.
Thanks again, Sidneyeve
Yes, it installed and is very impressive! Having everything in one place is extremely powerful.
I’m looking forward to hearing how it goes. Hope you’ll keep us posted.
Best,
Debbie
I just stumbled across this post by accident and your app fits with something I was just writing about today – the role of social technologies in education. This is exactly the kind of thing that needs to make its way into the classroom more. Is the app aimed at a particular age group?
Hi Lauren, thanks for stopping by.
This app contains content for 20-somethings in my university courses.
Having said that, I would think any high school class that supports mobile learning and uses/produces digital assets (links, videos, podcasts, slides) could use it happily.
The pre-req is a class set of iPod Touches or iPads — unless the students all have smartphones, which is probably still unlikely at this point.
I wish I knew more about K-8 teaching, because it seems to me that mobile apps would work with younger kids too. What do you think?
Sidneyeve