Quickly building iPad Learning Apps with the iWebkit

iWebkit is a free framework for the creation of iPhone and iPad compatible websites or web Apps. It can be used to create "Productivity Applications" as described in my post on "iPad Learning Application Styles". 

HTML experience is beneficial but not required because the included UserGuide provides an elementary overview on the key features. Nevertheless, web development skills are definitely needed when you want to leverage the framework to create iPad friendly front-ends to your web applications.

The iWebkit is in any case an easy way to get started with iPad Application development compared to Apple's SDK and object oriented programming with Objective-C. You also do not need to go through  through Apple's application approval process as you directly install the package on your web server. This also makes the maintenance process very simple and fast.  

My 88 years old Granny loves the iPad !

I visited my 88 years Granny this weekend and was very curious about her reactions to my iPad. She is the innovative kind of Granny who is always open to new things and so it was not much of a surprise that she really loved it!


Initially, she was a little hesitant to touch the screen - probably because she expected things to be a more complicated. It took less than a minute to demonstrate the gesture based navigation and there she was browsing through my iPad picture library...

We later looked at some of her photo albums and I took pictures of the old photographs, which we transferred to the iPad via Camera Connection Kit. Isn't it amazing to see her playing the piano in 1938 versus 2010???

HTML5 and the opportunities of not having Flash

Apple published a collection of demos as a showcase for the support of HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript on their mobile devices and new Macs. All of these demos work very well and fast with the Safari browsers on my iPad and Macbook.

I have been thinking a lot about the lack of Flash support and the impact on the Learning field in recent weeks. Let me be provocative by saying that there is a part of me that has started to see this restriction as an opportunity:

We would by now have probably done a "mass conversion" of millions of existing Flash based eLearning courses without paying much attention to the new device capabilities being offered. Instead, we are now somewhat forced to reconsider our options because our existing standards and tools cannot be applied.

The demos above are not groundbreaking and do not leverage the device capabilities either but like every new iPad app I come across they did provide me with a different perspective and new ideas for potential learning applications.

It does take an effort and the learning curve is steep but as fundamental is the impact on Learning we could have by coming up with a totally new set of Mobile Learning standards and applications. Don't you think so? ;-)