Firefox OS/Community/Hungary/Education/Courses/Firefox OS

The Firefox OS MOOC course is one of the first projects in the Hungarian Mozilla/Firefox OS community to try and get Open Web education (via Firefox OS) into Hungarian universities.

The project was founded by Krisztián Karóczkai in 2013 who started the first Firefox OS MOOC course at Óbuda University, in Budapest, Hungary.

MOOC?

MOOC is the initialism „Massive Open Online Courses”, and describes online courses available online for free, for a wide audience to provide accessible, open information and opportunity for learning. There are several MOOC providers already, operating worldwide (like edX, Coursera or Udacity).

The Firefox OS course is part of the regional K-MOOC platform, a Hungarian-language MOOC platform operated by Óbuda University. The K-MOOC platform is expected to serve any and all higher education institutions (colleges & universities alike) in the Carpathian Basin where the language of teaching is Hungarian with online courses in diverse topics from jazz through ergonomics & pedagogy to computer sciences and programming. K-MOOC courses are available to students of 16 Hungarian higher education institutions and in 13 additional institutions in 5 countries in Central & Eastern-Europe (as of July 2015).

The Firefox OS course has been growing in reach since its start and is expected to launch in at least 6 Hungarian institutions for the 2015/2016 fall semester, with discussions with additional institutes still ongoing.

History

The Firefox OS MOOC course (titled „Mobil alkalmazás fejlesztés FirefoxOS platformon” — mobile application development on the Firefox OS platform) was first announced by Krisztián Karóczkai and Kálmán Szalai at Webkonferencia 2013, and launched the next semester, in the February of 2014 at Óbuda University.

Early experiments at Óbuda University

For the first course Telenor Norway/Telenor Digital provided some phones (Geeksphone KEON-s and some PEAK-s), and the course started with about 20 participants. The first course didn't have hard output requirements (like the need for upload an app to the marketplace, as later installments had), and participant track record was judged by a per-case basis.

In the fall semester of 2014, the course returned with 20-25 participants in the same format, with an updated course material.

New course structure, expansion

For the spring semester next year in 2015 the course structure was revamped and an output requirement was introduced: everyone had to upload an app to the Firefox Marketplace by the end of the semester (though, successful reviewer clearance was not required to successful completion of the course).
The course structure was amended - in addition to the 16 students participating in a fully e-learning-based course, a second group started where studends had weekly laboratory classes too (after the recorded/streamed e-learning class) where they could get joint, hands-on experience with the curriculum and try their creations on Firefox OS devices immediately.

For this third installment, two new institutions joined Óbuda university:

• College of Kecskemét joined in a different, 3 day format. The classes were held on three separate Fridays, as whole-day events with 12-13 attendees. Lecturers (Krisztián Karóczkai and Kálmán Szalai) travelled to the college for the day and presented the material for the students.
  

The format didn't work very well, the long days were counterproductive, and only 4 students have successfully completed the course.

• University of Szeged also joined in a slightly different format that semester. Students were following on via watching watching the recorded e-learning lecture of Óbuda University, which then was followed by locally consumed content in a laboratory session, where they could try the new features with local & remote help available (the latter via remote desktop assist provided by Krisztián Karóczkai).
  

The semester also included 3 consulting sessions where Krisztián presented the latest lecture in-person and students were able to consult with him during the laboratory session afterwards.
This format, as it turns out actually worked very well and presents the base for the next semester starting in the fall of 2015, with the recorded lectures replaced with actual real-time streamed ones.

Óbuda University & Mozilla's education partnership ceremony @ OpenIT 2015

http://news.uni-obuda.hu/articles/2015/04/21/a-mozilla-es-az-obudai-egyetem-egyuttmukodesenek-elismerese

Firefox OS Education Award

Starting with the 2015 spring semester, at the end of each semester every application submission evaluated and the student (and his home institute) with the best application awarded with the Hungarian Firefox OS Education Award. The creator of the best application receives a Firefox OS device to make they continue contributing and supporting the application, while his home institute receives an engraved Firefox OS Award Cup. This both rewards and motivates students, and recognizes individual institutes for their support in the program.

2015 Spring Semester:

• Winning institute: College of Kecskemét, Hungary
• Winning app: "Labirintus"(?) by Pál Steiner
• Runner-up student: Kis Milán
• Institution award (cup) received by Dr. Zsolt Csaba Johanyák, tudományos dékánhelyettes (vice-dean of science)
• Award presented by Kálmán Szalai

2015 Fall Semester:

• will be awarded at the end of the semester

New pilot programme for 2015 fall semester

Dunaújváros joins in 2015/Fall, see below for the semester-opening ceremony Szeged/Kecskemét probably return for 2015/Fall

Maybe joining for 2015/Fall:

• Miskolc University
• College of Eger

Maybe joining for 2016/Spring:

• Veszprém University -- Mozilla/Firefox OS meetup coming up in Fall of 2015

Current work: 2015/2016 fall semester

The 2015/2016 iteration of the Firefox OS course will be the 4th semester since the project's starting date in early 2014.

In the current semester we face several challenges as we start to transition the project from its previous, experimental phase into a more structured and more organized pilot semester. With the experience gathered in the previous runs and due to the growing number of participating institutions, we have to scale the project and put it to a sustainable trajectory. We also need to start developing more versatile, localizable course materials that could then be picked up by non-hungarian-speaking communities and address challenges of the changing Firefox OS architecture and ecosystem.

Read more on the course structure and challenges below:

Participating institutions

Participating higher education institutions (returning for the fall semester):

• Óbuda University
• University of Szeged
• Kecskemét College

New institutions expected to implement the course this fall:

• College of Dunaujvaros
• College of Eger
• Miskolc University
• University of Veszprém

Note that above list might change according to how preparations progress at the partner institutions.

Course material

You can find the up-to-date current course materials, as well as course material of the previous semesters on the Mozilla Hungary GitHub.