LearningPaths

Inspiration

Most people enjoy learning when they have examples to follow. It is easier to motivate oneself when one can follow lessons that others can take. LearningPaths offer pathways for people to find lessons and goals to motivate themselves. With the potential to include several, community-driven lesson plans, LearningPaths provide a great educational experience for everyone.

What it does

LearningPaths aggregates links and resources for people who took the time to study the material in their own lives. Through sharing resources such as blogposts or YouTube videos, others would be able to follow in the footsteps of those who followed these videos.

How I built it

This app was built using the Android sdk and Android Studio(Java). The backend server was originally made using Heroku and Python, but it was transitioned toward Firebase.

Challenges I ran into

Heroku and Python were fairly unreliable, and the original plan was a lot more complex in scope. A lot of features were either cut out, streamlined, or implemented very poorly compared to the original vision for the app. Material Design was also very difficult to implement. Firebase also did not offer easy ways to access data once it was placed on their servers.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

With limited technical experience and resources(a thinkpad from 2007...), we were able to implement a social experience using Android and the web. This was huge, especially for us, since we haven't worked with JSON, XML, RESTful, or the Android SDK before.

What I learned

I learned a lot about creating backend servers and databases. For the future, it will be important to consider the tools available to implement an application based on scale. I would be more open to using tools like Heroku and Amazon AWS for more robust web application. I would also like to work with more hardware.

What's next for LearningPaths

After fixing major stability issues and testing on android, we would plan on a few key improvements: Firstly: we would take the Firebase backend and replace it with something more robust. A new backend would allow for the app to scale better and to include more features, such as a web or iOS client. Second: It would be great if we were to implement the "Share" features found in Android. Being able to share a video or a webpage directly from Chrome or Youtube to a Path would allow for greater ease of use. Finally, it would be important to aim for a cohesive visual language across the application, from the iconography to the animations and user interface. Our current icon looks like something from a video game... not cool. It would also be nice to include social network integration and elements of gamification to help people learn even more.

With more time, this idea would have been something that I personally would have used every day. However, a social experience like this is always determined by the strength of its community. I am confident that this would have made education more accessible and fun for everyone.