It has been nearly one year since I have posted a blog post but the exciting times ahead stimulated me to write this blog post. GSOC 2015 , in the beginning was a dream which was out of reach for me but with commitment, passion and guidance from a PIGGY (AKA Ura AKA Viduranga), I was able to finally make it a reality. I think I really do not have to explain much about GSOC, because it is the most awaited and the most competitive IT event of the year in any undergraduate who is majoring IT/CS. If you have not heard of GSOC before, go through this and continue the read.
GSOC 2015, Moodle and Me
This the first time I have applied for GSOC and I am glad that I got selected because after this year I will not be eligible to participate as a student. So in the beginning I made sure that I give my 200 % percent to it. When GSOC 2015 projects are released, the first thing I did was to go through the organization lists and their projects to find a suitable project to apply. The organization which I chose was Moodle, the most famous word among any undergraduate throughout the world. Moodle is a learning platform which is designed to provide teachers, administrators and students an integrated learning environment. And the project was about developing a SCORM player for the new Moodle mobile app. This year three projects from moodle have been accepted for the GSOC 2015.
Why Moodle ?
I
have used Moodle from the very first day I entered university and still using
it for academic purposes. I think moodle is a good platform to practice
cohesive learning. It is being used by a lot of university students all around
the world. Now the whole world has shifted to mobile and moodle has already
moved on to mobile with their mobile app. Joining the developing process of the
newest version of moodle mobile app which has the latest technologies and
developing an important plugin for it will be an immense opportunity for me. That
was the main reason behind selecting moodle and this project. What the hell is SCORM ????
When I first read the project description I actually did not get a clear idea because that was the first time I have ever heard of the word SCORM. But since the project was based on Javascript and because I am fan of Javascript and mobile applications, I thought of giving a shot for this. The first thing I did was starting research on SCORM. After some days I was able to find some several articles and PDFs about SCORM and got a basic understanding about that technology.
SCORM stands for Sharable Content Object Reference Model. It is a common standard which was introduced by Advanced Distributed Learning. These standards help that the SCORM based content can be used in any learning management system without any hassle.
Road map
Having that basic understanding I followed the guidelines which were mentioned in the moodle website for GSOC participants. I followed each of these guidelines very clearly and had continuous communication with the mentor Juan Levya. It helped me to clarify a lot of doubts and to prepare my proposal as clear as possible as well.
So the aim of this Project is to develop a Javascript based SCORM 1.2 Player for the new moodle mobile app which is based on ionic framework. This SCORM Player should be able to connect Moodle via Web Services for retrieving a SCORM package, unzips the file in the local storage. Retrieve additional information from the Moodle site and then launch the contents inside an iframe.
Now the community bonding period has started and the coding will start on the 25th of May. Hoping to get bonded with the Moodle Community in the coming weeks and wish me good luck for a summer full of codes. ;) :p
From the next post onward I am hoping to give you all a brief understanding about the my GSOC proposal, the technical background of the project and the specifications.
