Abstract:

The World has changed, lifestyle has changed, and in consequence people have changed. Social networking has been an agent of change. Thanks to Web 2.0 a person can be able to express, to show and most important to know. This lifestyle could be focused in educational purposes that may increase learning abilities in students.

The apparition of social networking and the rise of mobile devices have contributed to several major changes in lifestyle. Education is not far from it. That is why it is important to adapt educational theories, learning objects and didactic activities in order to be closer to its audience and commit its main objective: To form individuals.

This is the primary reason to develop learning objects that can be used in mobile environments and social media.
According to Google statistics until May 2012[1], Mexico have had 20% in adoption of smartphones. Also mobile apps are important for customization of smartphones, in Mexico a person has average 18 apps installed of which 7 apps paid.

Now it is important to explain that teachers and students have needs to communicate between them and for interchange some articles, slides, links, homework details and even notes or news. That is why this project was born, to help and to create in an easily way this bond that can improve achievements and destroy knowledge boundaries.

Application design:
Mobiles, smartphones and other gadgets are the most emergent technology distributed in last years, thanks to diversity of functions offered and thanks to easy and fast spread through media and social networking. The main objective is to help students using guides and interactive resources that allow knowledge and use of scholar services.

There are three principal users for Mobilesourcy: Students, Teachers and administrator. In order to cover target needs, an observation was made in Universidad Tecnologica de los Valles Centrales de Oaxaca (UTVCO). This is an University in Mexico which has an impact area in rural zones, but in fact all the students have a cellphone and half of them have a smartphone.

After this, an interview was conduced to get information and requirements for main users. Students manifest interest in an application that can be used to collect slides from classes as their principal goal. On the other hand, teachers also showed interest in an application that can be used for sharing resources with students, but also they wanted to be able to send some quick messages.

It was decided that Teachers and Students could use mobile devices. There will be a module for administrators as well, but it will be based on Web site. It is justifiable as they use a lot of information and records that have to be upload to MobileSourcy.

This application includes some tasks related with school resources and general information about subjects. There are three components in this application:

a) ModuleAdministration that can create subjects, register information of teachers and let those users to use subjects. The other task is to send news to every student with Mobilesourcy installed
b) ModuleTeacher
c) ModuleStudent has similar functions.

1.Home: It includes general news
2.Main Menu: It includes the strongest part of this application, distributed in three subcategories
a.Resources
b.MySourcy
c.Messages
3.Configuration

References:
[1] Our Mobile Planet. Google Inc.
[2] http://www.usabilitynet.org/tools/storyboarding.htm
[3] http://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics

Keywords:

Education, technology, apps, resources.