Just some quick updates to my IPhone application project. The app downloads OER content from here https://wikieducator.org/Streams/home and presents aquatic insect field guides tailored to specific stream sites on hand-held devices. The wiki content has been developing over a period of years at Saint Michael’s College. The mobile app was developed by a computer programming class at the University of Vermont.
A new semester brings a new class of computer programers and they have updated things. Once final bugs are worked out the update will go to the app store for free download. New features:
*I will now control the “about” content from a wiki page.
*The “state” location data will download from the wiki…so we can have sites for any state.
*We will have “above the fold” content that goes to the app; “below the fold” content displays only on the wiki and includes links and photos that are too cumbersome to bring to the app and are not useful at field sites anyway. The new app will simply take content until it encounters this string: “”. The string is invisible on the wiki.
*We are gradually adding common names for the bugs.
*We will also add tied fly names if they are available. Hoping to appeal to the fly fishers out there.
Wow! The work you have done with the streams project is inspirational. It is an exemplar of leveraging the power of openness to support student engagement and inter-institutional collaboration.
Its been a pleasure watching this initiative grow incrementally over the years. Well done.
As an amateur (and rather poor) fly fisherman - I will benefit tremendously from the intention to add tied fly names
As a former keen-as fly fisherman (and fly tier), I’m keen to investigate further, especially with the move from the NE of the US to New Zealand’s South Island… where there’re a few nice spots for fly fishing… (I even have a current fishing license and a nice hand-built fly rod! No excuses now!)
Ah, but I’m also an open source guy, so I don’t do Apple stuff… but I’ll have a look at it from the point of view of perhaps porting the app to Android…
My more computer savvy collaborators asked me some time back about making the app code open source. I of course said ‘go for it’…let me follow up and find where they deposited the code and you’d be more than welcome to have at it. Although, it may be worth waiting for the newer version. Some of the new features will be an improvement.
Cheers
Declan
…I’d love to see an Android version, it’s the most frequent request we get, but I’m an ecologist/entomologist type and not a computer guru… By all means let me know if you go that direction…or not…there are no restrictions…it’s open source.
Cheers
Declan
PS I love the fact that they went open source with it!!
Great to see you’ve open sourced it! Apologies for the lack of response in the meantime! I’d love to have a look at the code with a port to Android in mind (to be fair, it’d be my first Android dev project :)), but given the other “side projects” I’ve got going right now, it might be a while… It’s not aquatic invertebrates, but I’m working on this open source project which is getting some serious media interest in NZ: https://cacophony.org.nz
