[Year 12 SofDev] Pondering SD U3O2

Wed Feb 14 15:19:56 EST 2007

Hi David,

   Very impressive !!! Looking at the blurb on the Motorola A1000 phone at http://www.motorola.com/mot/doc/1/1053_MotDoc.pdf , it boasts a full html browser whilst many other mobile devices ( take an entry level Telstra 850 - rebadged zte f850 -  offered right now with a Telstra plan running the Next G network ) run wml .  This means forms will load, but won't submit if written in html but will do so in wml with or without PHP.

Best Wishes
Kevork

>>> dgdawson at mgs.vic.edu.au 02/14/07 11:41am >>>

My Motorola A1000 mobile phone runs HTML and allows point and click on
buttons etc.. :-) hence PHP apps run perfectly - I can even do my
absentees on it. I know of at least 10 other phones now available that
do the same.
Surely no one will be disadvantaged if their apps actually run? After
all it says "coding and debugging" in the assessment doc. But the
"ethical dilemma" has me wondering. How would a calculator or contacts
list match this unless they design an interface that is very different
to what they have seen before, or perhaps login to avoid privacy issues?
David D

-----Original Message-----
From: sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au 
[mailto:sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of Kevork Krozian
Sent: Wednesday, 14 February 2007 11:24 AM
To: sofdev at edulists.com.au 
Subject: Fwd: Re: [Year 12 SofDev] Pondering SD U3O2

  Hi Robert and Adrian and Claudia and Mark and everyone else,

 I echo Mark's sentiments in firstly congratulating the steering group
for writing a great study design.

  I do wish to take up the discussion however just to understand what is
meant by modelling a solution for a mobile device but not running it.

   [ Recall the early days of web authoring . Okay kids, we're setting
up a web site for your SAC, but it will never be seen on the web and it
doesn't have to work either , just designed or modelled.... !! ]

   I am not sure if I am a little naive here , but what is so special
about "modelling" a program to run on a mobile device ?
What skill set is required to model this task apart from understanding
that the mobile device has a smaller screen area ?
What other constraints can a programmer learn/implement/master - if they
don't have to make the program run -  apart from smaller font size ?

  Yes, if you run Visual Studio.NET 2005 you can create a point and
click mobile application.
So, without demeaning the students effort what are we assessing ? That
they know to select mobile application instead of a standard application
on the wizard ?

Let's look at a mobile phone. It runs a web page as a wml ( a relative
of html ) file. It can load a html page but buttons for example will not
work. 
Once upon a time images had to be wbmp ( wireless bitmap ) and now most
mobile phones will load jpg and other standard image types. Therefore,
if a student is not required to run the program or web page on a mobile
device, what skill set will he or she demonstrate to be assessed in this
outcome ? 
That his fonts have to be smaller and fit a screen 3 cm x 4 cm ?  .... 
anything else ? colour constraints don't need to be considered. Any data
that can be entered by a keyboard can be entered by the mobile device,
security is not something a programmer has to worry about when writing
the application as it is encrypted at a different layer eg. running a
web page over https:// as opposed to http:// where port 443 is used to
provide encryption. This happens at many layers ( layer 4 ) below the
application.

 So, if a programmer does not have to run or even write the program,
presumably so he/she can avoid the depth of technical knowledge required
to make it work, how can they design a solution in a meaningful way ?
Where is testing to occur ? Are we avoiding more than half of the stages
of the PDLC ?

  I am the first to resist torturing teachers for the sake of looking
like we're doing something current, innovative and reflecting current
trends in technology and society.
However, to have something that does not have to work and even not have
to be written will cause more stress than having some concrete
guidelines and examples ( working preferably ) of what is acceptable.

Best wishes

Kevork Krozian
Mailing List Creator and Administrator
kevork at edulists.com.au 
www.edulists.com.au 
Tel: 0419 356 034
----- Original Message -----
From: "Timmer-Arends" <timmer at melbpc.org.au>
To: "Year 12 Software Development Teachers' Mailing List" 
<sofdev at edulists.com.au>
Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2007 6:14 PM
Subject: Re: [Year 12 SofDev] Pondering SD U3O2

> Hello Mark
>
> I think Adrain and Claudia have the right interpretation. The 
> constraint of producing a software module suitable for implementation 
> on a portable computing device is intended as a constraint on the user

> interface (and perhaps other bits as listed by Claudia and Adrian) NOT

> on the type of program to be written or on the programming language 
> used. And it is this latter point that I think Adrian is trying to 
> make when he writes "The program does not have to be implemented - 
> just modeled."  - students might be required to write a game program 
> that can be used on, say, a Palm Pilot. Instead of trying to come to 
> grips with something like C as well as adapting it to PalmOS, they 
> might write the program using VB; it would/should have the 'look and 
> feel' of the Palm version but under the covers its just plain old VB -
hence it is a 'model'.
>
> Possibly a little dated,
> http://goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au/~winikoff/palm/dev.html contains a list 
> of PalmPilot SDKs (Software Development Kits) and some discussion 
> which could be of interest.
>
> Regards
> Robert T-A
> Brighton SC
>
> _______________________________________________
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> IT Software Development Mailing List kindly supported by 
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> 

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IT Software Development Mailing List kindly supported by
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