Introducing pocketCourse beta

This week I put the finishing touches on the pocketCourse beta.  Since I used MLEX to put together the pages, I also made usability improves on that project also.  I have more written up on pocketCourse along with a screen cast to show how it works. 

pocketCourse underwent a few changes from its original design.  Gone is lesson tabs on video and mp3 and new are tabs for assessment (quizzes and tests) and also a journal tab for students to keep personal notes or a journal/blog for their instructor.  I also did some work on the color scheme and integrated more icons as opposed to text buttons. The user interface is now very clean and I think functional.

Still left to complete are instructions for the Instructors who use it but setting up pocketCourse is primarily just building two xml files and then preparing the html files for lectures, assessments and assignments.  Oh BTW, mp3 and video files can be called from the html and also I integrated the CSS files from MLEX into pocketCourse so there are also some styling options.

The BlueTooth Kiosk maybe a project will be left for now.  I am having difficultly getting two computers with BT devices to consistently communicate in a client server dialog.  The technology here is much less developed for application development than with PDA mobile device programming. 

BlackBerry continues to push for more application development so that it can compete with Apple and Google offerings.  With there new Java tool, I might have a chance to create a BB version of my GCC Mapz program. I left it for dead earlier but I may try to revisit it before the sabbatical ends.

In the mean time, I will be testing and polishing up what I have done so far and perhaps will submit a couple of the projects for presentations at conventions and symposiums on mobile devices and learning.

The economic news continues to be bad for everyone and for Motorola and SonyEricsson who seen to be the most vulnerable to the slowdown. See WSJ story  link for full story.  Mobile device acquisition and new features will be effected by the downturn.