MiLK – The Mobile Learning Kit connects students and teachers through simple and effective web and mobile technologies.
MiLK pushes the boundaries of teaching and learning beyond the classroom and into the other environments students inhabit both now and in the future.
MiLK is a web-based Flash application that enables teachers and students to design everyday learning activities using mobile phones and the Internet within a protected social network. For students this makes events such as excursions, group discussions, and questionnaires all the more engaging. Students can create their own learning profiles, discuss topics with other students and teachers, share ideas, photos, comments, and most importantly, design their own learning events.
Events are typically played in real physical locations and consist of a number of checkpoints at which the player must SMS an answer before they are directed to the next checkpoint. An event path can be designed to meet specific learning outcomes for any subject or any location. The interface also enables player reflection and assessment functions.
MiLK has been acquired by Secret Sauce for commercialisation and distribution.
MiLK was also selected as a Top 3 Finalist (Innovation Award, Secondary Category) at the Handheld Learning Conference in the UK!
DEVELOPMENT SUMMARY
Team: Deb Polson, Shu-Min Heng, Yang Wong, Colleen Morgan, Sherwin Huang
As a small team we were all involved in the overall concept and design of MiLK.
Yang Wong
My role as the Technical Lead involved:
- Design/Development of the back end systems (excluding forum, blog)
- Design/Development of the event/messaging logic engine
- Development of the administration interfaces
- Integration of SMS services
- Server Administration
Technology: PHP, MySQL, Apache, and a variety of open source packages.
Shu-Min Heng
My role was as Lead Interface Designer and Lead Graphic Designer. This included:
- Ensuring a consistent art direction across all internally produced material
- Design/development of the front end interfaces (the main MiLK application, offline demonstration, web administration interfaces, website front page)
- Design of the MiLK visual branding
- Design of various marketing and community materials (posters, business cards, newsletter templates, instruction manuals, order forms, etc.)
Technology: Flash (ActionScript 2), Photoshop, Illustrator, Pages, PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery.
LINKS
MiLK was developed by a small team based in Brisbane, Australia, and funded by ACID The Australasian CRC for Interaction Design.
Home/Blog – http://www.milkit.com.au
Awards & Reviews – http://www.milkit.com.au/milk-awards-reviews
What Users Think of MiLK – http://www.milkit.com.au/milk-videos/
Developer Websites – Newish Media, Sherwinpedia