I have just released my second app called Targetboard Grids and I was surprised by how easy it was to do this time. All I needed to know was how to make a simple table in HTML and fill it in with numbers or letters.  Add a splash of colour and it was ready to go to market. In this article, I’m going to show you how to make a really simple app that shows a teacher’s class timetable.

While I don’t think this is a great idea for an actual app to put on marketplace, you might be able to use it on your own phone as a web app.  You might have a couple of ideas of how to utilise this idea for some other project.

What you need:

• A HTML editor or Microsoft Word
• An Appmakr.com account
• A compression program like WinZip

I’m going to use MS Word as it’s probably the easiest to work with. It’s important to make sure that when you start a new document that you click, New Web Page.

I need to make a table that will fit in times and the days so I’ll need 6 columns and I’ll start with 8 rows.  Obviously, you tailor this to your own needs.

Once you’ve filled in the subjects and times, it’s time to make it look nice.  There’s two ways you can do this.  You can save the file as it is now and then do some coding in CSS. However, in this tutorial I’m going to simply edit the table to make it look the way I like.  I do this by right-clicking on the table and selecting the Borders and Shading option.  Once I’ve changed my colours, I can change font sizes and colours too.

It’s now time to save your table.  Click on File -> Save As and make sure to save your file as “index.html” and as a web page.  You can check to see if this has worked by closing Word and finding the file you’ve saved.  Double-click on the file and it should open in your web browser.

We need to port it over to become an app.  Go to the web site, http://www.appmakr.com, and get yourself an account. When you register, you’ll need to create a new app so click on the Create a New App button.

You’ll have the option of creating an iPhone or an Android app. It doesn’t really matter what you choose but the iPhone version has a better simulator to see what your app looks like so we’ll choose this.  You’ll be given the option of adding an RSS Feed to start off but we’ll skip this.

At this stage, we need to give our app a name and put in some artwork.  I’m going to skip all this and go directly to the “Tabs” section because this is where we’re going to add in our timetable.

Before we add anything, we will need to compress our index.html file and give it a decent name.  You can use compression software to do this. I like 7-zip but anything will do.  Once the file is compressed, I usually change the compressed filename to something readable like “ttable”

Back in Appmakr, click on the Add An HTML/PhoneGap Tab button.  Choose an appropriate icon. You’ll see a green bar appear above with the word “html” in a white box. Change this to “Timetable.”

Click “Choose File” and select your compressed file. Then click Upload. Within a couple of seconds, a greyed out box should have the text: C:\fakepath\XXXX.zip depending on what you called the file.  Have a look at the iPhone simulator to the side now.  Click on the icon that you chose and your timetable will be there!

In my example, I can see Monday to Wednesday but I can scroll across to the right to see the rest. (As I said, this idea of a timetable is probably not the best one!)

You’ll need to delete the default “Home” RSS feed from the list of tabs or you’ll have an RSS feed from AppMakr on your timetable app.  Click Save and you’re almost there.

You can now go through the rest of the tabs, adding images, headers, etc. Once you’re done you can go to the Publish tab and set yourself up with a developer ID.

I’m afraid after that, you’re on your own! It costs $25 to be an Android developer or $99 for an Apple one every year.  Both stores have their own unique instructions as to how to get your app online. Android makes it very easy, which means that your app could be in the Marketplace in a couple of hours.  The downside is that there are a lot of apps that are in the Marketplace that might cause issues to your phone in the wrong hands as Google don’t operate an approval system.

To get your app up on the Apple AppStore, requires a load of steps, each more confusing than the last! You’ll also need a Mac computer.  Once you get through the steps, there’s still no guarantee that it will be accepted by Apple.  For example, I would be surprised if this one got through!

So there you have it, a simple way to get you started with developing apps and the rest is up to your imagination.

A few weeks ago, I reported that I had designed a smartphone app for my school.  The Carlow Educate Together app ran on Android phones.  I promised that I would try and piece together an iPhone app as they are very popular and today it appeared in the AppStore. The app has exactly the same functionality as the Android version.  One can:

• Read the latest news from our school web site
• Read the noticeboard in our foyer
• See our school calendar
• Send a note if your child is absent from school
• Browse a sample of photos from our school

You can download the app for free from the AppStore directly from your phone or by clicking on this link.  Enjoy!

The Irish Times recently reported about a secondary school in Co. Mayo who have decided to offer students the opportunity to replace their textbooks with iPads.  Essentially, rather than spending €450 on the schoolbooks and bringing them to school everyday in heavy schoolbags, parents can spend about €700 on an iPad with electronic versions of the books on it.  The books themselves are simply electronic replicas of the textbooks.  There are no videos.  There are no interactive quizzes. Doesn’t this sound familiar?

A few months ago, again with great furore and publicity, a secondary school in Co. Meath gave all their first year students a Fizzbook (a tablet/laptop combo) with electronic replicas of the textbooks.  So, it’s the same old story except with a cooler device storing the books.

While one could look at these two stories as the first step on the road to integrating technology into education successfully, it also raises questions about why we have to start that process this way.

The only difference between the iPad book and the traditional textbook is the weight.  Both are used exactly the same way.  Here are a few simple tweaks that the iPad version of a textbook could have done:

Video

A book cannot show a video but an iPad can.  Hence, wherever possible, the iPad book could be used to show videos of teaching concepts, real life scenarios, etc.

Internet Links

Let’s say you’re reading about a particular topic and would like to read more about it.  A nice list of links to related web sites might be useful.

Dictionary

I’m reading my school textbook and I come across a word I can’t understand.  What do I do?  A few years ago, a trusty dictionary would come to the rescue.  Nowadays, most electronic books can link up to an online dictionary.  Simply click on a word and its definition shows up.

Sharing Notes

Your teacher tells you to remember some phrase or definition.  In anyone’s language, this means that it is likely to be important (or come up in a test).  Let’s say you could highlight this text and save it then share it with other users.  Amazon’s Kindle allows this so it shouldn’t be too difficult.

Interactive Quizzes

Most textbooks have revision questions at the end.  Surely it is easy enough to make these self-correcting or at very least have the ability to send them electronically to the teacher who can send you back your score or grade.

There’s probably plenty more ways that one could enhance a textbook on an iPad.  In fact, it’s quite likely that this will be the route that these textbooks will go down over the next few years as companies head down the road of digitising their schoolbooks.

However, the iPad (and any Internet-enabled device) is capable of producing much more than all this.  Even with the above tweaks, these digital textbooks are still textbooks doling out content to students, which they will eventually have to regurgitate at the end of 6th year.

Could the iPad version of the textbooks have started differently?  Why did it need to take the textbook and simply digitise it?  Why did it not think of some other way to help students learn?

One possibility for the iPad would have been a content-free platform for sharing curriculum knowledge.  Students could build their own portfolio according to their own learning needs and styles from an almost infinite bank of knowledge on the web.  Why should one book company dictate how it teaches Shakespeare or Boyle’s Law?

Why can’t students find examples of re-enactments of plays and videos of science experiments then store and share them on their own personal learning network?

Why can’t teachers share their notes or their favourite links with their students to help them through the finer details of trigonometry?

Why can’t developers create beautiful games and quizzes for schools  that not only challenge their memory but also their skills of searching for information, finding that information and expressing that information well.

Unfortunately, it looks like we’re going to be seeing iPads and other tablets being used in a traditional sense, at least for the time being.  I suppose it will be up to primary schools to show them how it’s done properly!