LITTLE LEARNER

TECHNICAL REFERENCE MANUAL

Bharat, Greg and Hannah

CPSC 4820/682 Spring 2017

Mobile Device Software Development

V1.0 Modified on 04/11/2017

Little Learner Technical Reference Manual Page 1

Contents

1. Application Information ................... 2

1.1. Abstract 2

1.2. The Developers ........................ 2

2. Use Little Learners......................... 3

2.1. Let’s Play ............................... 3

2.2. Flash Cards ............................. 3

2.3. StickMan 4

2.4. Tic Tac Toe.................................. 6

2.5. Math Blaster ............................ 7

2.6. Slap Jack ................................ 7

2.7. Geography .............................. 7

2.8. Games by Topic ........................... 9

2.9. Quizzes 9

2.10. Components under progress 12

2.11. Acknowledgements 12

Little Learner Technical Reference Manual Page 2

1. Application Information

1.1. Abstract

Little Learner (LL) provides elementary

students with a variety of miniature games

to further their education and study for

their classes. LL is equipped with plenty of

learning material upon release, but

teachers or parents could add words,

problems, etc. for each of the games to

add to the app. LL also features a web

based quiz creator that allows teachers

and parents to create quizzes for all

students using LL. We have also included a

performance tracker so students may see

their progress towards mastering their

skills.

1.2. The Developers Bharat, Greg and Hannah

Little Learner Technical Reference Manual Page 3

2. Use Little Learner Upon opening the app you will

see a splash screen with options

to play games, view progress or

see information about the application. Here we have implemented an image as

the background and placed some buttons to navigate the app.

2.1. Let’s Play Upon choosing “Let’s Play”, the user will

first be presented with a list of games to

choose from. They will also be given the

option to browse the games by topic or

to take a quiz. The quizzes are the ones

that parents and teachers can submit to

the app. These are all buttons to

navigate the app.

2.2. Flash Cards Upon selecting

flashcards, the user will

see a splash screen that

has the option to start or

get information about

the game. The info

button will lead you to

the

Little Learner Technical Reference Manual Page 4

second image and will

provide instructions. If a

user selects start, they

will be taken to a screen

that allows then to add

new words to their list or

to start the quiz. The

words are put in by the

user and are stored in a

hashmap. The quiz will

load a flashcard image

with the options to listen to the words pronunciation,

to flip the flashcard over or to go on to the next one.

To listen to the flashcard, we have implemented the

t2speach function and set the language to either

English or Spanish depending on the side of the

flashcard that the user is on.

2.3. StickMan Upon selecting StickMan,

the user will see a splash

screen with the options

to Play or Create a Level.

If the user selects play,

they will be given a word

chosen at random from a

list of words in the res/

raw/ folder and begin to

guess letters. This game is to help a student perfect

their spelling skills using common vocabulary and

Little Learner Technical Reference Manual Page 5

spelling words. As letters are guessed, that button on

the keyboard will disappear. We have created buttons

for each key on the keyboard that have a condition to

disappear upon being pressed. The user can also choose

to listen to the word to test their spelling further. The

listen function is also t2speach.

The Android Media Player:

The splash screen in the Stickman uses the android

media player to provide a rich audio visual experience

as the app is launched.

The audio icon seen at the bottom left corner of the

screen above is the option used to toggle the audio

on/off when in this screen. This audio player makes use

of the “android.media.MediaPlayer” library.

The audio file in the “raw” folder of the project

directory is played through the “.start()” routine

whenever the audio needs to be played.

Little Learner Technical Reference Manual Page 6

The Android Text to Speech Converter:

This library is used in both the stickman app as well as

the flashcards app.

“android.speech.tts.TextToSpeech” library requires the

local language and the text to be converted to read the

text as an audio like audio books.

The word list for the stickman app that is converted to

audio is obtained from the “wordlist” filed in the “raw”

folder. The list has close to 800 entries that are parsed

and converted to audio by the Text to Speech Library.

2.4. Tic Tac Toe

Upon selecting Tic Tac

Toe, the user will be

taken to a splash screen

with the options to play

or learn how to play. If

the user selects “How to

Play”, they will be shown

the screen on the right

with instructions on how

to play the game. If the user selects

“Play”, they will be taken to a black

tic-tac-toe board and start a game.

This view is created using a table view

and it creates a clickable image when

a user taps on a square to place an X

or O.

Little Learner Technical Reference Manual Page 7

The logic for the game is implemented using a series of conditionals and checks to see if someone has won. This game is to help students enhance their logic and critical thinking skills.

2.5. Math Blaster Upon opening Math

Blaster, a user will be

presented with a splash

screen that will allow the

user to select an option

to play the game or to

read instructions on how

to play the game. If the

user selects the option to

play, they will be given a

basic math expression and

potential answers will float across the screen. The user

must tap the correct answer. The expression is

generated by using a random generator. The incorrect

answers will be generated the same way.

2.6. Slap Jack This game is not implemented yet.

2.7. Geography

This game is not implemented yet.

Little Learner Technical Reference Manual Page 8

2.8. Games by Topic Upon selecting the Games

by Topic button, a user

will be presented with a

list of topics instead of a

list of games. This will

allow a user to know

which skill they will be sharpening while playing the

game. This feature uses a conditional statement to

change the text in the buttons.

2.9. Quizzes Upon selecting the Take a

Quiz button, a user will

be able to browse a list of

quizzes that teachers and

parents have uploaded to

the app. These quizzes

are accessible by any user

of the app. Each question

has five questions. The

questions will be

uploaded using an

authoring tool online. This website will be available at

https://people.cs.clemson.edu/~bgovind/ll/

postquiz.php.

Little Learner Technical Reference Manual Page 9

After a quiz is uploaded, it will be stored in an

external database. Immediately, the app user will be

able to refresh their quiz page and see the new

uploaded quiz there. Additional functionality for the

quiz app can be found at these links:

To get a list of all quizzes and author details https://people.cs.clemson.edu/~bgovind/ll/

phpauthoring/allquizlist.php

To get the content of one using the quiz

name

https://people.cs.clemson.edu/~bgovind/ll/

phpauthoring/getquizcontent.php

Databases: The Quiz app makes use of the above-mentioned PHP authoring tool to connect to an external PostgreSQL database.

Little Learner Technical Reference Manual Page 10

External Database Schema:

Tables: Posted Quizzes: Holds the list of quizzes posted by from the authoring tool along with author of the quiz and date posted. Quiz Content: Holds the content of each quiz including question, options and answer Internal Database: The data from the external DB are downloaded through GET/POST requests and the JSON response is parsed and stored in the internal SQLite Database.

Little Learner Technical Reference Manual Page 11

Internal Database Schema:

The structure of the internal database is same as the external database. The Countdown Timer: The quiz app and Math Blaster app use the android countdown timer and display the time remaining to complete the activity in minutes and seconds.

Little Learner Technical Reference Manual Page 12

This is achieved by importing the “android.os.CountDownTimer” library that is in sync with the android clock.

2.10. Components under Progress: Geo App, Slapjack, Progress Tracker

2.11 Acknowledgements:

• Dr. Roy Pargas – Instructor CPSC 482/682 • Sydney Paul - TA CPSC 482/682 • Clemson Creative Inquiry and Undergraduate

Research. • Clemson School of Computing for hosting the app

server and database. • Google Images for sourcing images used in app

and this presentation

• Home Screen Logo: http://www6.flamingtext.com/net-fu/jobs/25013135488536102.html

• Home Screen Background Image: https://pixabay.com/en/boy-book-reding-child-school-311392

• Sound Effects: https://www.freesound.org/people/fins/sounds/171671/https://www.freesound.org/people/fins/sounds/173958/

• http://www.mavengang.com/2016/05/02/gif-animation-android/ for using GIF animation

• Android Developer (developer.android.com) and stackoverflow.com