The Design of Educational Materials

So much of educational materials are created in a very traditional manner- primarily words and pictures, presented in an academic manner; textbooks. Even when we aren't creating a textbook, we often model educational material off of a textbook. Part of the challenge of creating educational materials, especially ones that are voluntarily engaged in, is making sure it does not look or feel like a textbook.

Parts of my app feels very much like a textbook, and parts don't. However, there are very few parts that couldn't be done in a book. This is one of the dangers of rushing to developing educational materials for new technology. If we are using technology to just create a digital version of what already exists, are we really going to reach anyone new? Perhaps a few as it may increase availability and ease to access... but will it be now utilized by a significant percentage of people?

Trying to get the app published has been one of my biggest concerns, but if it hadn't perhaps I'd of been able to spent more time on the design, or adding content of differing design that create a more varied experience for the user and potential learners.

The most successful apps are games, and people actually often learn a lot from games, especially children. We say science is hard because it is liking learning a new language, but look at how many kids can easily identify hundreds of pokemon, their types, moves, and weaknesses. Instead of having children learn make believe, what if they learned real things, and if it was presented in a way that they would readily want to learn them?

Following the completion of this project, I'm considering studying game design to create several educational games focusing on science content.

Temporary Completion of App

I originally intended to finish the content earlier, but the time spent trying to publish the app has pushed other things back. It was also my intent to have more content than what's finished, but I didn't expect to spend so many hours fighting with the certificates for submission.

The completed content can be seen below. In previous videos and screenshots, I had left what was incomplete as light grey. Based on what I've read, a great way to get an App rejected during the approval process is by making it look unfinished- as such I've removed traces of what is yet to be completed. I'd like to get it added in at some point, once I figure out how to get the submission to go through (which may require rebuilding the whole app).

At this point, I also have to begin working on the report that goes with the App, so additional content will be on hiatus until after the report is complete and at least some form of the app makes into onto the App store.

Alternative: Shout-Em

 Competing Options: ShoutEm

There doesn't seem to be a lot of competing affordable alternatives. This seemed to be a possibility, so I did a bit of investigating. ShoutEm is not intended to be used for this sort of app, so I place no blame on them for the level of success related to re-purposing it in this way.

While ShoutEm doesn't seem ideal for this project, there may be quite a few other possible projects I could imagine them being utilized for in the future.

Disappointing Results with DPS & Apple

After spending two more days trying to publish, I;ve found additional problems, and solutions that don't seem to work. While I was able to find a version of Xcode for my version of Mac OSX, apparently, that was a waste of time, because through reading forums of people having similar problems, you can only submit apps created with certificates from whatever the newest version of Mac OSX.

After borrowing a computer from some one else, installing the most recent version of Xcode, and trying to resumbit it, hat isn't working either. So, back to researching how to get something submitted to Apple. It's extremely frustrating that you can spend almost as much time trying to submit the app as actually making one. Its also frustrating that neither the materials from Apple nor Adobe state these restrictions and limitations.

I've also sent emails to Apple requesting some help with whats going wrong, but haven't recieved any replies.

Working through Adobe DPS

Adobe has produced a guide to publishing through their Digital Publishing Suite, Single Edition. There's not as much content yet as I'd like, but my thought is submit what is done to get it started on the App Store and continue to develop it. The image above is the front image for the guide to submit the iPad app to Apple. It's not exactly a five minute read. You can see the contents below, listing the number of pages filled with tasks to complete the process:

I've spent a lot of hours working through the publishing process. You can see how far I got through the checklist below. I'm using an older version of Mac OSX, so it was a rather timeconsuming to find and download the right version of Xcode. Once finding it, the download was fun too, being over a gig. Click on the image below to see the full size.

Even after spending most of today and last Saturday working on it, am having trouble getting Apple to accept it. Apples system is not accepting the certificates created earlier in the process. I'm going to have to do some research and trouble shooting.

App Content Update

Just an update to some of the content in the App.

Version 3

Version 3

Redesign + Generation of Content. This redesign utilizes only content created by me and/or public domain/creative commons content.