Redesigning Android Development Course

[amritsrivastava]

Proposed Android development course syllabus

• We are planning to cover this in two months.
• Please write comments on the division of lectures, are these topics okay?
• What other topics we should include in the curriculum?
• Is some topic very long & might need more than one lecture. (Remembering we just have to give an introduction, like a presentation, there is no hands-on session, but if you feel some session should be kept so comment)
• How much do you feel lecture duration should be?

Getting started with the web

• Getting started with Android and Android architecture
• Basics of JAVA
• Setting up Android SDK and First Project
• Building a basic Android app
• Activities
• Services and UI of Android
• Data Storage in Android
• Android APIs and JSON parsing

[nd-singh]

First of all, Android is very vast topic. It can not be covered completely in 2 months. What we can do is divide the syllabus in three differnt modules like-
module 1 will be- Basics of java which will be approximately 5-8 lectures if we are giving minimum 1.5 hr.

Secondly, module 2 will be comprising of Android Archietecture, setup Android Studio, basic functionalities, SDK, Activities, UI, Fragments, webviews. This will be comprising of 10-15 lectures with 4-5 basic apps.

Now for the third module we can Introduce backend. In this we can cover databases SQLite database, Firebase and libraries like volley, Glide. I think firebase can provide solution to the backend instead of JSON parsing because for this we need php scripts and might we have to cover php in the course. Json parsing and php will take much time. This whole module comprises of 10-15 lectures

After all this, apps can be developed like mini media player, order delivery system etc

[amritsrivastava]

@nd-singh these courses are designed to give an introduction to the android development.
We will provide resources if they want to carry it.

[accakks]

@nd-singh Problem is we do not have 25-40 lectures. What we wanna do is not provide a course exactly, but some introduction & tools for each topic, like a talk or something, provide study resources from internet (for self study), some practical assignment (practice) . Two lectures could have some gap for self study.

• We want to mentor, not teach. Working hard, using resources as per guidance and completing the assignments is still in the learner's hand.
• No student can spare this much time to give lectures.
• Even if someone does, no one would allow.

[nd-singh]

@amritsrivastava @accakks Oh! I thought of having lectures. Yes we can do that too! We can provide resources and links. Yes! exactly that's in the learner's hand how much they practice and do assignments. Assigning projects willl help more to grasp things.

[accakks]

@nd-singh We will have lectures, but like brief quick go through, then we'll provide links for self study & projects/assignment to apply that knowledge.
The topics above would be covered in single lecture of atmost 1 hour.
We need views on is it possible(even for overview)? Should we break down something? Are we forgetting to add something? etc

[ajohri98]

Customer adapter
Retrofit
Volleyball
These are the advanced android topics which will give student confidence in android

[accakks]

@ajohri98 For project ideas?

[nd-singh]

The course content for android is pretty good. If there is time for 1-2 more lectures I suggest to keep one session for projects discussion and at least 1 project should be assigned to them which they have to complete in the whole course. What say? @amritsrivastava @accakks

[accakks]

This is actually a nice idea to keep project discussion class.
We'll be assigning assignments to people & one big project. Maybe we can have 1 or 2 discussion classes for those.

This can infact be added to all the courses. @maddhruv @amritsrivastava

[soumilk]

approximately how many lectures do we have for android?
For even to provide the basic knowledge to students or for some decent projects this should be covered in the course :
Instead of wasting lectures on Java we need to cover different aspects of Android. Android has automated pop-ups for java related terms, we just need to explain their working and rest they know as they have read C++ before, no need to begin java from scratch.
We should at least teach them how to make a smooth responsive and user-friendly basic app.
We have to take at least one lecture to make the machine ready, else the errors are endless in it.

1. java (one lecture is sufficient because java isn't that much used in the android studio)
2. Android activities, framework and layouts
3. Dynamic layout
4. Connect to the internet (JSON and more)
5. Intents
6. Recycler view, fragments
7. UI exploration ( webview, material design, constraint layout)
8. setting preferences and user permissions.
   this will at least cover those features which they need to know to call themselves android developers at the very basic level.

[accakks]

@soumilk Nice suggestions! Can you check out accakks-patch-1 and make a PR on that branch?
README.md has Android course content. Change & add whatever you feel & make a PR. Some 1-2 topics you mentioned are missing there I guess

[soumilk]

@accakks ohk