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International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, 10(3), 1-16, July-September 2012 1
Deployment of Mobile Learning

Course Materials to Android
Powered Mobile Devices
Lee Chao, University of HoustonVictoria, USA
ABSTRACT
The objective of this article is to facilitate mobile teaching and learning by providing an alternative course
material deployment method. This article suggests a course material deployment platform for small universities or individual instructors. Different from traditional course material deployment methods, the method
discussed deploys course materials by using services provided by Android Market. After comparing the
traditional course material deployment and the alternative deployment, the author presents strategies to
take advantage of Android Market in delivering course materials to mobile devices. Through a case study,
this article illustrates the application of these strategies in deploying a class menu for an object-oriented
programming course in the computer science curriculum.
Keywords:
Analysis Design Development Implementation and Evaluation (ADDIE), Android Market,

Deployment, Mobile Device, Mobile Learning
INTRODUCTION
To efficiently transfer knowledge from instructors to students, various instructional design
theories have been developed by researchers.
For example, as a generic instructional design
model, the ADDIE model has been widely used
by instructors and trainers to deliver knowledge
to students (Branch, 2009). The ADDIE model
breaks the entire knowledge transformation
process into five manageable units, including
Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation. A comprehensive coverage
of the ADDIE model is provided by Strickland
(2010).
DOI: 10.4018/jdet.2012070101
In the implementation phase, course

materials are transferred from the instructor
to students through various channels (Alajmi,
2009). The tasks accomplished by the implementation phase include course material deployment, technical support, and training.
The process of distribution and deployment of
course materials include testing, packaging,
and making the course materials available to
the students (Magliaro & Shambaugh, 2006).
The implementation phase often has issues to
be addressed and requires strategic actions.
Therefore, the implementation phase is one
of the actively researched areas. Agostinho,
Meek, and Herrington (2005) discussed the
issues related to effectively implementing
online learning. Their study indicates that
Copyright 2012, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
2 International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, 10(3), 1-16, July-September 2012
their adopted implementation method requires

significant support in order to fully facilitate
an engaging and authentic learning experience for students. Orhun (2004) studied the
implementation phase of the information and
communication technology (ICT) innovation
in education. Orhun (2004) discovered some
problems in the implementation phase. The
practice of learning with computers usually
took place in vocational schools while most
of the other schools were mainly focused on
teaching about computers. The research by
Ho, Kuo, Tsai, and Kuo (2006) confirmed Orhuns finding. In their research, Ho, Kuo, Tsai,
and Kuo (2006) found that elementary school
teachers spent most time in the implementation
phase of the instructional design process. These
research studies have indicated that one of the
key factors for successful implementation is to
keep the deployment platform simple and avoid
letting students spend too much time on learning
how to use the distributed course materials. In
the case of mobile learning, the implementation phase posts even more challenges. Wang
(2008) listed the promises and challenges
about the implementation of mobile learning.
In the research, the servers were developed to
distribute the course materials and the mobile
devices were used as the interfaces and data
collection tools.
Traditionally, the deployment of course
materials could be done through mailing the
CDs or floppy disks to students. It was reported
that the high speed and high performance
ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) network
technology was used to implement a distance
learning environment (Littman, 1997). Streaming audio and video technologies are also used
to deploy course materials (Hartsell & Yuen,
2006). Lately, a Web which allows reading
and writing activities is used to deliver course
content to students (Conboy, Hall, & Thompson,
2009). Rang (2006) summarized the trend in the
course material deployment technology. Even
with these advanced deployment technologies,
the deployment of course materials is still a
challenging task. As pointed out by Rollins and

Almeroth (2004), the deployment process is a
difficult process even for a technically savvy
person. In the case of mobile learning, it is even
more difficult to deploy course materials to
students mobile devices. Some types of course
materials distributed through the traditional
delivering methods as described above may
not work well on mobile phones. For students
to use their Android powered mobile devices to
run course materials, an appropriate deployment
method is needed.
Based on the idea of making course
materials easy to use and keeping the course
material deployment platform simple, this
article suggests an alternative course material
deployment platform for small universities or
individual instructors. The proposed deployment platform utilizes Android Market to
distribute course materials. Android Market
presents a new approach to delivering course
materials to students mobile devices. Once the
course materials are downloaded from Android
Market, they will be installed automatically on
students mobile devices; this can significantly
reduce the complexity of deployment.
In this article, the focus is on testing,
packaging, and delivering course materials
to Android powered mobile devices through
Android Market. This article presents some
strategies and procedures to test and deploy
course materials through Android Market. The
main goal of the article is to facilitate instructors
in testing and deploying their course materials
through Android Market. This article demonstrates a deployment procedure by deploying
a class menu created for an object-oriented
design and programming course to Android
mobile device. It is structured as follows. The
next section compares traditional deployment
methods with the Android Market deployment
method. Some Android Market deployment
strategies are then presented. A case study is
used to illustrate the implementation process
by following the strategies. The conclusion of
the study is given in the last section.
TRADITIONAL
DEPLOYMENT METHODS
VS. ANDROID MARKET
DEPLOYMENT METHOD
In 2008, Google publicized the details of Android Market, which is an open content distribution system (Chu, 2008). Through Android
Market, users can find, buy, download, and
rate applications and other content for mobile
devices that are powered by an open source
operating system. As Chu (2008) pointed out,
the deployment of an Android application can
be done through three easy steps, registering to
Android Market, uploading and describing the
application, and publishing it. If an application
to be deployed on Android Market is free, then
there is no cost to the application developer
by using Android Market. In addition to the
simplicity and no cost, Android Market has
some other features that are desired for course
material deployment.

Android Market allows each individual

instructor or course material developer to
deploy and update their course materials
anywhere and at anytime.
It is not necessary to set up university Web
sites or distribution servers to distribute the
course materials.
Students do not have to reconfigure their
devices to allow the installation of packages
from unknown resources.
These features make Android Market an

ideal platform for distributing course materials
to mobile devices used by students.
There are some advantages and disadvantages of using the traditional ways to distribute
course materials. Here, the traditional deployment methods are defined as the deployment
through a Web server and other media such as
a flash drive and CD. If a university has already
set up Web sites or distribution servers with
strong support, instructors or course material
developers may simply forward the course
materials to the support team and rely on the
support team to distribute the course materials.
Another advantage of the traditional distribution methods is that it can distribute the course
materials in various formats. When compared
with Android Market, the traditional course
material distribution may have the following
disadvantages.

It relies on the service provided by the

universitys IT department. For many
small universities, there are no Web sites
or distribution servers created for course
material deployment.
The course materials posted by a Web
server may not be mobile device compliant.
It requires students to reconfigure their
mobile devices to allow the installation of
packages from unknown resources.
It is inconvenient to collect feedback from
students and to update the course content.
It costs universities money to perform
daily maintenance of their Web sites or
distribution servers.
If a downloading Web site is managed

by the in-house IT department or instructors
themselves, several things need to be addressed.

We need to make sure that the course materials are placed on the Web site where
the students can download the course
materials. To do so, student accounts need
to be properly created and ready to accept
remote logins.
After the course materials are uploaded,
the login information should be clearly
written and placed on the cover page of
the class Web site.
On the downloading Web site, the instruction of the installation procedure should be
available to students. For the convenience
of the students, the Web site should provide
the upgrade information and information
about the Web browser security configuration for the course material download.
The information about the software and

hardware requirements should also be provided
to the students. Online technical support service

should be in place to provide technical support
and training.
The way of distributing course materials
through Android Market is only an option for
the deployment of mobile based course materials. It has advantages only when an instructor
or developer is thinking of deploying course
materials for mobile phones powered by open
source operating systems such as Android. It is
not intended to entirely replace the traditional
ways of distributing course materials.
STRATEGIES TO DEPLOY
COURSE MATERIALS
THROUGH ANDROID MARKET
To deploy course materials through Android
Market, educators must address several aspects
of this approach. It is important for them to
investigate strategies to efficiently and effectively deploy course materials through Android
Market.
After the course materials developed for
Android powered mobile devices are tested and
all the requirements for the course materials are
met, it is time to release the course materials
to the students. Several things need to be done
before the course materials are ready for installation on Android powered mobile devices.
1. The first thing is to test the course materials
on an emulator and real mobile device.
2. Secondly, the creator of the course materials needs to properly specify the version
of the Android application.
3. Thirdly, the person who created the Android based course materials need to make
sure that all the Android applications are
digitally signed.
4. Fourthly, the expiration date needs to be
properly specified by the creator of the
course materials.
5. Finally, the icon and application name
should also be specified so that they can be
displayed on the studentsAndroid powered
smart phones. If the MapView element is
used for the course materials, the creator

of the course materials needs to register the
application with the Google Maps service.
This section presents some implementation
strategies that should be taken into account by
educators who consider deploying their course
materials through Android Market.
Android Application
Testing Strategy
Ideally, the course materials should be able to run
on mobile devices with various configurations
(Burnette, 2008). Before distributing the course
materials to students, it is necessary to test the
course materials against various configurations.
The testing can be done on an Android smart
phone emulator and physical mobile devices.
By testing on the Android smart phone emulator,
the instructor can find out how the course materials behave under various screen resolutions,
targeted mobile devices, network speeds, SD
card sizes, and different levels of CPU delays.
It is important to test the course materials
on physical mobile devices. The testing on the
physical mobile devices can give the instructor
an idea of what the course materials look like on
these devices, if the screen orientation can be
changed on Android smart phones, and how the
course materials perform under various mobile
network conditions. The testing on the physical mobile devices also helps the instructor to
find out the power consumption of the course
materials. One of the testing solutions is to let
the students in the class test the beta version
of the course materials, since the students may
own different Android powered mobile devices.
The creator of the course materials can
also use testing tools to test the course materials. Android includes a testing tool called UI/
Application Exerciser Monkey which generates
pseudo-random streams of user events, for
example, clicks and touches, or some systemlevel events. UI/Application Exerciser Monkey
can be used to perform a stress-test on applications. To automatically test the Java code, the
instructor can consider the easy-to-use open

source testing tool JUnit.
Android Application
Versioning Strategy
There are two types of versioning. The first one is
application versioning which is used for course
material upgrade or maintenance. The application versioning is used for the update control
of Android applications. The versioning of an
application is used for establishing the upgrade/
downgrade relationship. The course material
installation process depends on the version of
the application. When multiple applications are
published as a suite, the version number is used
for the verification of compatibility.
The second type is API versioning, which
requires the creator of the course materials to
specify the minimum version of an Android
platform required to run the course materials. The creator of the course materials often
needs to compromise on the requirements for
an API version. To run the course materials
on earlier released mobile devices, one would
like to make sure that the course materials
can run on the mobile devices powered by the
Android operating system with a lower version
number. On the other hand, to take advantage
of the features offered by a newer version of
the Android operating system, one may want
the course materials to run on the Android operating system with a higher version number.
The difficulty is that the Android operating
system is not always backward compatible.
For example, to allow the course materials to
run on mobile devices with various resolutions,
starting from Android 1.6, Android has the new
capabilities which provide better support for
differing screen sizes and resolutions. If the
course materials are compiled with Android 1.5
or lower, Android will assume that the course
materials run under the standard screen resolution (HVGA, 320x480). For a mobile device
with higher resolution, Android may run under
the compatibility mode to adjust to the higher
resolution. However, Android will block the
course materials from running on mobile phones
with a lower screen resolution. Therefore, if the

course materials are compiled with Android
1.6 or higher, the mobile devices powered by
Android with lower versions will not be able to
run these course materials. The creator of the
course materials needs to make tough decisions
on the API version. The strategy is to compile
the course materials with different versions so
that the students can have a choice. Although
some of the students may not be able to take
advantage of the features offered by a newer
version of the operating system, they are at least
able to run the course materials on their mobile
phones with a lower API version. Publishing
multiple versions of the course materials may
cause some confusion when a student wants to
upgrade an old version of the course materials.
The students should be informed that a new
version is available and they should simply
discard the old version and download the new
version. If a student directly upgrades the old
version to the new version, some of the new
features may not be automatically added to the
directly upgraded new version.
Android Application
Signing Strategy
For the students to download and install the applications created by the course material creator,
the applications must be digitally signed by the
creator. The digital signature is used to identify
the creator. Unsigned Android applications will
not be installed on Android powered mobile
devices. To properly sign the course materials
to be deployed to the Android powered mobile
devices, the course material creator should
consider the following strategies.

The Android applications do not need to be

signed by a certificate authority. They can
be signed by their creator. The instructor
who creates Android applications generates
his/her own personal certificate and signs
the applications with a private key.
When the created course materials include
multiple applications, the course material
creator should sign all the applications with

the same key.
All the upgrades of an application should
be signed by the course material creator
with the same key.
For the applications that need to share data
and functionalities, they should be signed
with the same key.
The applications to be run in the same
process should be digitally signed with
the same key.
The validity of the signing key should
match the life spans of all the applications
signed by the key. The recommended validity period is 25 years or more. For the
applications to be published on Android
Market, the key validity period should be
set after 22 October 2033.
There are two ways to sign an application.

During the application development stage, an
Android application is signed automatically for
debugging and testing with the debug signing
mode. For public release, the Android application should be signed manually by the course
material creator.
Signing Android Application Automatically:
Eclipse is an integrated development environment (IDE) which includes an extensible plug-in system for supporting multilanguage software development. With
Eclipse, an instructor can develop course
materials with programming languages
such as C, C++, Java, Python, Perl, PHP,
and so on. Once the Android Development
Tools (ADT) plug-in is added to Eclipse,
Eclipse becomes a powerful tool for developing Android applications. During code
compilation, the default debug key is used
by Eclipse to digitally sign all of Android
applications. Since the passwords for the
debug key are publicly known, the debug
signing mode cannot be used to sign course
materials for public release. By using the
debug mode, there is no signing activity that
is required for the course material creator.
Signing Android Application Manually:

Since the debug key is not for signing course
materials that are ready to be released to
students, the course materials for public release must be digitally signed manually. To
manually sign the course materials that are
ready to be published, the course materials
should be compiled in the release mode.
Once the course materials are compiled
in the release mode, a private key should
be created. Then, the creator signs the
application with the private key. The tool
called zipalign should be used to optimize
the signed package for better performance.
Android Market
Publishing Strategy
After the course materials are signed, they
are ready to be deployed to students mobile
devices. One of the options is to publish the
course materials to Android Market which
provides the hosting service for course material
distribution. To publish on Android Market, the
course material creator should first register in
Android Market through the Web site: http://
market.android.com/publish.
After having registered in Android Market,
the course material creator can upload and
publish the course materials to Android Market.
Through their mobile devices, the students are
able to search for the course materials published
on Android Market. Once the students find the
course materials, they can download and install
them on to their Android mobile devices. The
evaluation of the course materials can be done
by ranking and commenting on the course
materials on Android Market. Through Android
Market, the instructor can check the students
ratings and comments.
Sometimes, the instructor may need to
update the existing course materials once newer
technology becomes available or corrections
are made to the existing materials. By using the
Android Market hosting service, the instructor
can publish the update to the course materials.
To publish the update, the instructor should
increase the versionCode and versionName
attributes in the manifest file of the application

package. The instructor will also need to sign the
updated version of the course materials before
the update can be published to Android Market. After the update is published, the students
will receive the update notice on their Android
mobile devices. They can then choose to update
the course materials to the latest version.
Android powered mobile devices have a
pre-installed application called Market which
can be used to link to the Android Market
Web site, browse available course materials,
download the course materials, write reviews
and rank the course materials. Market can be
launched from the applications included in the
course materials. This is done by sending an
Intent which is an Android public class used
to launch another application.
User Authentication Strategies

Once the course materials are published on
Android Market, the materials are available for
everyone to download. Sometimes, the instructor would like to make the course materials
available only to the students. There are some
authentication methods to choose. The instructor
can create a cover page to allow the students
to enter their usernames and passwords and
then compare their usernames and passwords
with the ones kept in an existing list. For more
sophisticated authentication, the instructor can
use authentication tools provided by Android
such as AccountManager, or use the VeriSign
Mobile software developer kit (SDK) to perform
enterprise-level authentication.
IMPLEMENTATION OF COURSE
MATERIAL DEPLOYMENT
The rapid development of mobile technology
has created a new learning platform, mobile
learning. Mobile learning which integrates the
knowledge of e-learning and mobile networks
accommodates teaching and learning by providing a true anywhere-and-anytime learning
environment (Attewell & Savill-Smith, 2004).
On the other hand, the mobile learning environ-
ment posts a challenge on the delivery of course

materials to mobile devices (Liukkunen, 2009).
In a computing related curriculum, instructors often develop some course materials which
include programming code used for graphical
user interfaces, computer programs, class
menus, or educational games. For many other
academic areas such as social science and liberal
arts, some course materials may also include
programming code such as applications that
are used for interactive social science exam
preparation and taking a cultural event quiz. The
computer code inside this type of course material will help students interact with the course
materials for better understanding. Delivering
these types of course materials to students needs
extra effort since it requires the installation of
computer programs on the students mobile
devices. The security measures enforced on
todays mobile devices may prevent the attempt to install the course materials that include
programming scripts. This section will explore
solutions for delivering such types of course
materials to Android powered mobile devices
through Android Market. The deployment of
course materials through Android Market is a
process of packaging, signing, downloading,
and installing course materials to Android
powered mobile devices.
Android is a platform that includes a Linux
based mobile operating system and an application software development platform. Android
was initiated by Google. Later, it is under the
management of Open Handset Alliance which
includes members from over thirty well-known
hardware, software, and telecommunication
companies (Ableson, Collins, & Sen, 2009).
The Java based application software development platform provided by Android is an ideal
environment to create programming based
course materials for mobile devices.
Android powered devices have been used
in mobile learning (Chao, 2011). With Android
powered devices, instructors are able to develop
course materials for their classes. These text or
multimedia based course materials are designed
to run on Android powered devices. However,
for students to run the course materials on their
Figure 1. Cover page
Android powered devices, the instructor must

create some mechanisms to distribute the course
materials and to deploy them onto the students
Android powered mobile devices.
To demonstrate how the deployment strategies are applied to the distribution of course
materials, this section describes a process that
publishes the course materials to Android

Market. The course materials to be deployed
are a mobile based class menu developed for
an Object-Oriented Design and Programming
class. The cover page of the class menu prompts
a student to enter the username and password
for authentication as shown in Figure 1. After
Figure 2. Main menu
Figure 3. Class description
a student logs on to the class menu, the main

page of the menu will list the class content in
five categories, Class Information, Notification,
Discussion, Grades, and Assignments as shown
in Figure 2. By clicking a menu item listed on
the main menu, the student can get the detailed
information in that category. For example, if the
student clicks the item Class Information, he/

she will get the course description as shown in
Figure 3. Similarly, when a student clicks the
menu item Assignments, he/she will get the
submenu list which includes the items Comment, Download Assignments, and Upload
Assignments as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4. Assignment submenu
Figure 5. GUI configuration tool
Device Configuration Testing: By using an

emulator, one is able to test course materials for mobile devices with different configurations. For the class menu, Table 1
describes the tests done for various device
configurations.
tion many other types of Android powered

mobile devices. It is not likely that we can test
the course materials on each of these Android
powered mobile devices. For this class menu
project, we have successfully tested the course
materials on G1 and MyTouch.
The testing of the class menu project has

been done by reconfiguring the emulator with
the Android emulator console commands or
with the GUI tools provided by Eclipse as shown
in Figure 5.
For the class menu project, the testing on
the physical mobile devices is a real challenge.
We are facing a diverse Android powered smart
phone market. At the beginning, there were
only a few brands of Android powered smart
phones such as G1 (Cha & Lee, 2008), MyTouch
(German, 2009), and Droid (German & Cha,
2009). Now, dozens of brands of Android smart
phones are available on the market, not to men-
Android Application Versioning: In the class

menu project, the version of the course
materials is specified by using the following two attributes in the AndroidManifest.
xml file:
android:versionCode: The value of
this attribute represents the version
of the Android application. When
a new version of the application is
created, the value of the attribute is
incremented by 1.
android:versionName: The value of
this attribute represents the real version number of the application. The
Table 1. Testing of Android device configuration

Test Items
Parameters
Screen Resolutions
240x320, 320x480, 480x800
RAM Sizes
96MB, 192MB, 288MB, 512MB, 1GB
Network Speeds
gsm, gprs, edge, umts, hsdpa
CPU-Delay
1000, 500, 200, 0
SD Card Sizes
512MB, 1GB, 2GB, 4GB
version number is displayed in the

format <majorversion>.<minorversi
on>.<pointversion>.
API Versioning: In the AndroidManifest.xml
file, for the current version of the class
menu, the API level is 7, which identifies
that the API framework is provided by the
Android 2.1 platform. An API framework
is used by Android applications to interact
with the underlying Android operating
system. Another way to specify the API
version is to use the GUI tool provided by
Eclipse as shown in Figure 6.
enter the passwords for the keystore and

private key. The final step of the signing
process is to use the tool zipalign to align
and optimize the final APK package after
the course materials are digitally signed.
The use of zipalign can reduce the RAM
consumption of an Android application.
Another way to sign the course materials
is to use the Wizard provided by Eclipse.
Through the Wizard, the course material
creator can instruct Eclipse to run the commands keytool, jarsigner, as well as zipalign.
As shown in Figure 6, the class menu has

been created with the Android 2.1 platform.
A separate class menu created with Android
1.1 is also available for Android smart phones
powered by the older version of the Android
operating system.
After the course materials are digitally

signed and optimized, the class menu is ready
to be deployed to the Android powered mobile
devices. It should be noticed that, if the course
materials include multiple applications, the
same private key will be used for all the applications. The course material creator needs
to make sure that the passwords of the keystore
and private key are kept in a safe place for
future reference. If the passwords are hacked,
the course materials can be used by unauthorized person to corrupt the course materials or to
steal the students or instructors information.
To keep the passwords secure, it is important
to use strong passwords, do not use the options
-storepass and -keypass for both the keytool and
jarsigner commands so that the passwords are
not available in the shell history, and do not
give the keywords to the students.
Android Application Signing: For the class

menu project, the following procedure is
used to sign the course materials. First, to
compile the course materials in the release
mode, the course materials are exported to
a pre-specified folder as an unsigned Android application package. Then, the unsigned Android application package is
signed by using the private key generated
by the utility called keytool. The keys and
the related certificates are stored in the
dedicated folder. After the private key is
generated, the command jarsigner is used
to manually sign the Android application
package. During the signing process, the
course material creator is prompted to
Android Market Publishing: The signed class

menu is published to Android Market in
three steps, registering to Android Mar-
Figure 6. API versioning
ket, uploading the course materials, and

publishing the course materials to Android
Market. The registration requires a Gmail
account and a $25 registration fee. The
Android 1.6 platform or a later version allows the course material creator to upload
screenshots, descriptions, or promotional
text and graphics with the course materials.
In the case study, the screenshots in Figure 1
and Figure 2 are uploaded for the promotion
of the class. During the uploading process,
we specified the type of the application and
defined the category as Demo. The course
material creator can determine in which
country the course materials will be published. In this case study, we specified the
class menu to be available in All Locations
where the course materials are available for
downloading in every country on the list.
In this way, the students around the world
can get their course materials. In the case
study, the students are also allowed to make
a copy of the course materials from their
mobile devices.
After the class menu is uploaded and

published to Android Market, the students can
search Android Market from their Android
powered mobile devices. Figure 7 shows that
the class menu for the course COSC3317 is
available on Android Market. Figure 8 shows the
description and the screenshots of the uploaded
class menu displayed on Android Market. Clicking the Install button starts the download and
installation process. The installation process is
completed automatically as shown in Figure 9.
Students are not required to do any additional
configuration, which is one of the advantages
of using Android Market to deploy course materials. Figure 10 shows that the class menu is
now available as one of the applications on an
Android powered mobile device.
To collect information about the usefulness
of the deployment method, discussions with
the students were conducted at the end of the
semester. The instructors and class support staff
members were also interviewed to get their
opinions on this pilot study. All the students
who had the Android powered mobile devices
gave very positive comments about the convenience and flexibility of the proposed deploy-
Figure 7. Course materials on Android market
Figure 8. Course material description
ment method. On the other hand, some of the

students in the class were using mobile devices with different platforms and had to use
the traditional deployment method. These
students would like to see a similar deployment

method developed for the iPhone and other
platforms, or would like the university to provide Android mobile devices for the class. The
Figure 9. Completed installation process
Figure 10. Installed course materials
instructors were also very positive about the

convenience and flexibility of the proposed
deployment method. However, the instructors
expressed some concerns about the technical
details related to testing and versioning. They
would like to get more technical support from
the university. They also raised the question
about who should pay for the Android market
registration fees.
For many small educational institutions, it
is unlikely that they are able to provide Android
powered devices for students. It is possible that
the deployment method can be implemented
through Apple Store for the iPhone, iPad, and
iPod. However, compared with Android Market,
Apple Store imposes more restrictions which
are less convenient for individual instructors
to freely add or remove course materials to
or from Apple Store. The cost for publishing
course materials to Apple Store is also higher.
Moreover, developing course materials for
multiple platforms can significantly increase
the cost and effort.
CONCLUSION
Deployment is one of the tasks handled in the
implementation phase of the ADDIE model. The
use of Android Market provides an alternative
channel to deploying course materials to mobile
devices. Deployment through Android Market
is particularly useful for distributing course
materials that contain programming code used
for graphical user interfaces, interactive course
materials, class menus, or educational games.
Through the Android Market platform, small
universities or individual instructors are able
deploy course materials to students mobile
devices without using distribution servers. By
using the services provided by Android Market,
the deployment process can be significantly
simplified, and it may not be necessary to create
and maintain a download server for deploying
the course materials. By taking advantage of
the services provided by Android Market, students do not need to reconfigure their mobile
devices to accept the computer programs from
unknown resources. The download and installation process can be completed automatically.
Instructors and other course material creators
can use this deployment method anywhere and
at anytime to deliver their course materials to
various student populations.
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Lee Chao is currently a professor of math and computer science in the school of Arts and Sciences
at University of Houston Victoria, USA. He received his PhD from the University of Wyoming,
USA, and he is certified as Oracle Certified Professional and Microsoft Solution Developer. His
current research interests are data analysis and technology-based teaching. Dr. Chao is also
the author of over a dozen of research articles in data analysis and math modeling, and books
in the networking, mobile learning, virtualization, and database systems.

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International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, 10(3), 1-16, July-September 2012 1

Deployment of Mobile Learning

Analysis Design Development Implementation and Evaluation (ADDIE), Android Market,

In the implementation phase, course

2 International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, 10(3), 1-16, July-September 2012

their adopted implementation method requires

challenging task. As pointed out by Rollins and

International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, 10(3), 1-16, July-September 2012 3

Android Market allows each individual

These features make Android Market an

It relies on the service provided by the

If a downloading Web site is managed

The information about the software and

4 International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, 10(3), 1-16, July-September 2012

to the students. Online technical support service

used for the course materials, the creator

International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, 10(3), 1-16, July-September 2012 5

instructor can consider the easy-to-use open

with a lower screen resolution. Therefore, if the

The Android applications do not need to be

6 International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, 10(3), 1-16, July-September 2012

creator should sign all the applications with

There are two ways to sign an application.

Signing Android Application Manually:

International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, 10(3), 1-16, July-September 2012 7

attributes in the manifest file of the application

User Authentication Strategies

ment posts a challenge on the delivery of course

8 International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, 10(3), 1-16, July-September 2012

Figure 1. Cover page

Android powered devices, the instructor must

publishes the course materials to Android

Figure 2. Main menu

International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, 10(3), 1-16, July-September 2012 9

Figure 3. Class description

a student logs on to the class menu, the main

student clicks the item Class Information, he/

Figure 4. Assignment submenu

10 International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, 10(3), 1-16, July-September 2012

Figure 5. GUI configuration tool

Device Configuration Testing: By using an

tion many other types of Android powered

The testing of the class menu project has

Android Application Versioning: In the class

International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, 10(3), 1-16, July-September 2012 11

Table 1. Testing of Android device configuration

240x320, 320x480, 480x800

96MB, 192MB, 288MB, 512MB, 1GB

gsm, gprs, edge, umts, hsdpa

1000, 500, 200, 0

512MB, 1GB, 2GB, 4GB

version number is displayed in the

enter the passwords for the keystore and

As shown in Figure 6, the class menu has

After the course materials are digitally

Android Application Signing: For the class

Android Market Publishing: The signed class

12 International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, 10(3), 1-16, July-September 2012

Figure 6. API versioning

ket, uploading the course materials, and

After the class menu is uploaded and

International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, 10(3), 1-16, July-September 2012 13

Figure 7. Course materials on Android market

Figure 8. Course material description