Moodle for android offline users

Moodle for android offline users

by ALFONSO ROJAS ALDACO -
Number of replies: 6

Hello community! I would like to know if there is a way to make an android device be able to act as a server, I mean, use its hotspot or the wifi's p2p or whatever possible that allows to create a reliable local network to run the server side.

As far as I understand, Moodle is well known for being able to run in a local host, several years ago it was a common usage, however, although wifi isn't quite a well spread commodity yet,fortunately Android devices are.

I was wondering, if there is a way to make an android Device work as a server side, and by taking advantage of the P2P or Hotspot Wifi, run a server side and create a course so people can sign into the local network, be able to enroll and use moodle and then provide feedback like grades or general information to the server side where the information can be gathered and stored.

Am I way too wrong or is it something that can actually be achieved?


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Re: Moodle for android offline users

by Marcus Green -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

In theory yes because the base requirement for Moodle is some type of *amp stack, where amp is Apache,Mysql and PHP, and it is possible to run all of those on Android and underneath the window dressing, Android is a heavily customised Linux, which is the L in LAMP. However there are barriers because of the heavy customisation.

There are various ways of getting AMP running on Android and I have experimented with them, but not put the time into get the whole Moodle stack running. 

An alternative is Moodlebox which is a way of getting Moodle to run on a Raspberry Pi server.  You can buy a new Raspberry pi for less than the cost of the most basic of good android devices (e.g. an Amazon Kindle fire). Moodlebox is a slick project and it is well worth investigating. You can even make Moodlebox mobile by powering the pi with a USB battery pack. Moodlebox acts as a wifi access point so you do not need internet access

If you are keen to pursue Moodle on Android then Moodlebox might be a good place to start.

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Re: Moodle for android offline users

by ALFONSO ROJAS ALDACO -

Well, thank you very much! Indeed sounds like a solution with a rather low and cost effective device. I will seriously take it into consideration, thank you very much for your reply!

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Re: Moodle for android offline users

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
Hi

When you say "android offline users" you mean the students bring their own mobile devices (Android) to the classroom, but the school has no connectivity to the Internet?

Then as Marcus has already pointed out a MoodleBox as the Moodle server + wireless access point is the obvious solution.

Talking of off-line users, the Moodle mobile client https://download.moodle.org/mobile/ has set of strong off-line features like answering in the forum or even taking tests (Quiz) without connectivity.

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Re: Moodle for android offline users

by ALFONSO ROJAS ALDACO -

Yes, that is exactly what I mean, they bring their own device, but, there is no WiFi  reliable connection, I know that the Moodle mobile has some powerful offline features, but what I would like to have or better said, what I would like to bring or give to the students is the experience of working online and getting used to distance learning or virtual learning.

And the side advantage for me is having people enrolled and taking quizzes or other moodle supported exercises without having to retrieve one by one the grading, maybe this MoodleBox will help to manage the classroom because I assume the results of such events will be concentrated in the MoodleBox.

Initially I was planning to modify an Android device, but since you guys gave me a nice alternative with an external device, now I know where to aim and scope. 

Thank you very much!!

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Re: Moodle for android offline users

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
Hi

You wrote:
> Yes, that is exactly what I mean, they bring their own device, but, there is no WiFi reliable connection [...] what I would like to bring or give to the students is the experience of working online and getting used to distance learning or virtual learning.

I can confirm: MoodleBox is made exactly for this szenario.

> And the side advantage for me is having people enrolled and taking quizzes or other moodle supported exercises without having to retrieve one by one the grading, maybe this MoodleBox will help to manage the classroom because I assume the results of such events will be concentrated in the MoodleBox.

If you know Moodle, MoodleBox is just plain Moodle, always the latest version. Well, there are some enhancements for the administrator of the box, but normal users won't see any of them.
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