LITTLE LEARNER - people.cs.clemson.edugfranci/cpsc4820/10.P3.TRM.pdf · Little Learner Technical Reference Manual Page 2 1. Application Information 1.1. Abstract Little Learners Little

LITTLE LEARNER

TECHNICAL REFERENCE MANUAL

Bharat, Greg and Hannah

CPSC 482/682 Spring 2017

Mobile Device Software Development

V2.0 Modified on 04/25/2017

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 .............................. 8

2.8. Games by Topic ........................... 8

2.9. Quizzes 9

3. Progress Tracker .......................... 15

4. Acknowledgements ....................... 16


1. Application Information

1.1. Abstract

Little Learners Little Learner provides

elementary students with a variety of

miniature games to play to further their

education and study for their classes. A

parent would be able to use a website to

enter their child’s schoolwork. This app is

equipped with plenty of learning material

upon release, but teachers or parents could

add words, problems, etc. to each of the

games to add to the app. We also have

included a performance tracker to see a

student’s progress. LL also has a feature in

the app that allows teachers and parents to

create tests for all students using the app.

1.2. The Developers Bharat, Greg and Hannah


2. Use Little Learners 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


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 Custom 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. Create a Custom will allow a user to build their own list of words. This game is to help a student


perfect their spelling skills using common vocabulary and 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.

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. 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 t7o 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 Upon opening the

slapjack game, you will

be presented with a

splash screen. Then the

user can select a mode to

start the slapjack game.

These modes include

evens, odds, multiples of

three, four and five, and

prime numbers. The screen

will then show a number. If the number matches the

criteria that the user has selected, the user must tap


the number before it disappears. The app will keep

track of the users score as they play. Slapjack uses a

timer to handle the changing of the number as time

runs out. There will be ten questions per round and the

game will not end until the user has answered all 10.

The timer has been implemented using a handler and

runnable.

2.7. Geography This app will open and

show a list of continents

with their corresponding

map. The user then will

select the continent they

would like to learn more

about. Next, the user will

be presented with the

option to view their

“Lucky Country”. Upon

the country loading, the

user will see a map of the

country, the flag, the

capital, and the currency.

The geography app has a

list of conditionals

corresponding to the button that a user selects.

2.8. Games by Topic Upon selecting the Games by Topic button, a user will

be presented with a list of topics in stead 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.

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.


To get a list of all quizzes and author details: https://

people.cs.clemson.edu/~bgovind/ll/phpauthoring/allqui

zlist.php

To get the content of one using the quiz name: https://

people.cs.clemson.edu/~bgovind/ll/phpauthoring/getqui

zcontent.php

Databases:

The Quiz app makes use of the above-mentioned PHP

authoring tool to connect to an external PostgreSQL

database.

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 for the quiz

app.

In addition to the tables dependent on external DB

the internal DB also has tables to track progress for

Quiz, Math Blaster and Stickman app and for keeping

scores in Math Blaster.


Internal 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

Game List: Contains the list of games in Little Learner

with foreign key references to progress and mb content

tables.

Progress: Contains the points earned (Cumulative

Score) in Math Blaster, Stickman and Quizzes. This data

is used to calculate the current level and progress in

progress tracker explained in next section.

MB Content: Contains real time scores for Math Blaster

game


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.

This is achieved by importing the

“android.os.CountDownTimer” library that is in sync

with the android clock.


3. Progress Tracker This feature will track the

progress of a user as they play

math blaster, stickman or take

quizzes.

Math Blaster has increasing level

of difficulty. As the player

progress through the game you

will progress to the next level. It

also incorporates negative

scoring to account for missed

guesses.

Stickman’s progress tracker will keep track of the

number of words that you have guessed correctly.


For the quiz section, the progress tracker will add up

the points that you have acquired as you take quizzes.

The Progress Tracker layout uses the progress bar

Layout object and uses an iterative handler (Refer

image above) that runs on a separate asynchronous

Thread.

The Handler allows the activity to send and process

message and runnable objects associated with a

message sequence. This gives the animation effect of

the progress starting from 0 and ending at the current

progress every time the user starts the activity.

4. 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

https://pixabay.com/en/boy-book-reding-child-school-311392

https://pixabay.com/en/boy-book-reding-child-school-311392

http://www.mavengang.com/2016/05/02/gif-animation-android/

http://www.mavengang.com/2016/05/02/gif-animation-android/

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LITTLE LEARNER - people.cs.clemson.edugfranci/cpsc4820/10.P3.TRM.pdf · Little Learner Technical Reference Manual Page 2 1. Application Information 1.1. Abstract Little Learners Little