While I am making my way through my reading for ENGL5376 and ENGL5369 I am still taking a few minutes here and there to do some research from my final project for Online Publishing. After exploring a number of the university based apps I think I have a good idea of how I want to progress and what I want to do. I have decided to set a goal for a final ideal pie in the sky app with all the possible bells and whistles I might like to create but then start small working away on the components a piece at a time.
The pie in the sky project will be to create an app similar to iStanford. I was very impressed with the design and elegance of the app. It is packed with a lot of components that I like some of which I would like to integrate now and others that would be possible list items once I become more proficient. If all goes as planned my final app will include the following components:
- News Feed - using an RSS feed we already have established on the Clarkson news site.
- Events Calendar - using an RSS feed provided from the current off site product we subscribe to
- Athletics Feed - I have to check and see if we have RSS feeds for our current news information. I'm not sure that we do since these pages are handled by the athletic department and site development and hosting is handled by a third party off site.
- Maps - input the current map images and use localization coding to allow for GPS location while on campus.
I think these four items will provide a pretty good start for the app with the map being on of the most difficult. I have a couple of other items I would like to include in the app but am not sure how time consuming all of the above will be so I am prepared to add more at a later date if I find the ability. I plan to start with the RSS feed and figure I will work my way down the list from there. I found what looks like a nice
tutorial on building a simple RSS reader but will have to wait until this evening to check it out since I didn't carry along the Mac today. We will see how the process goes from here but I better get back to reading since I still have a lot to get finished before class on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings.
Nice to be able to use courses to make practical moves in your own work. What iStanford has been doing has been working steadily for 2 or so years I believe, but moving forward on their work makes good sense. Establishing a news feed and calendar would be useful. Maps for new people on campus, most useful. What about course scheduling or a course portal for courses that want to post information? Yes, every school should provide this for students by the Fall. Might work some with Joshua in our course, too.
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