Month: September 2017

Difusión – one of the leading publishers of educational material for Spanish as a Foreign or Second Language – and Avallain have been running and continuously enhancing the powerful online ELE platform Campus Difusión since 2015. Built using Avallain Unity’s modular architecture and filled with high-quality interactive content created with the powerful authoring features of Avallain Author, the innovative freemium platform has since become the premier online Spanish learning and teaching solution worldwide. Now, with the increasing significance of mobile devices for learners and teachers alike, the platform innovates yet again – with the new free Campus Difusión mobile app, powered by Avallain Non-Stop.

Sophisticated software, created with reliable technology

We were one of the first companies to recognise the full potential of mobile output for educational software back in 2007. Thus, we started developing Avallain Non-Stop, our groundbreaking mobile app architecture. Today, Avallain Non-Stop is in its 3rd generation, fully reliable and refined for the needs of the education industry. It has already proven itself as an architecture for numerous learning and teaching applications.

Features of the Campus Difusión mobile app

The Campus Difusión app is an interactive mobile learning and teaching application for Spanish. It functions as an addition to Campus Difusión, allowing users to download the app for free and use their existing Campus Difusión login information. Thanks to Avallain Non-Stop, the Campus app is being made available as dedicated versions for both Android and iOS devices, ensuring optimal performance regardless of the device used. For full multi-device flexibility, MS Windows and Mac OS desktop versions are also available.

Only a few months after the initial launch, more than 4’000 users have already taken advantage of this easy-to-use yet highly effective mobile addition to the Campus. They were among the first to enhance their learning experiences with the many features the Campus Difusión app has to offer, such as:

• More than 150 high-quality dynamic videos
• More than 2’000 self-correcting exercises for learners
• Fully interactive digital Spanish textbooks
• Teaching Materials such as worksheets, class competitions etc.

Aware of the benefits of mobile devices as well as their limitations, the Campus Difusión app can also be used to download this educational content, allowing teachers and learners to use it offline. This is a significant advantage when using unreliable wireless connections or mobile devices with no wireless capabilities at all.

A partnership driven by innovation

Using Avallain Non-Stop to create their mobile app, Difusión have shown yet again that its focus on constant innovation makes it a perfect fit for Avallain.

We are delighted to have such a reliable partner,” say joint Difusión CEOs Katia Coppola and Jaime Sala. “Their experience and efficiency have not only helped turn Campus Difusión into the number one resource for Spanish learners and teachers – but it has also been instrumental in the successful development and launch of our first mobile app.

We, in turn, appreciate the close partnership, as Ignatz Heinz, Co-founder and Managing Director of Avallain, puts it:

Difusión is not only a leading company in the education sector, they have proven time and again that they are willing to go the extra mile to provide their users with innovative and effective educational software on all available devices. We are glad to be on the cutting edge of the industry with them.” This sentiment is mirrored by Katia Coppola and Jaime Sala: “We are already looking for new ways to enhance Campus Difusión and its mobile app in the future, and we are excited to say that Avallain technology will play a huge part in this.

The app has already helped the company in taking the first big step towards this future, as they have gained the ability to create individual course-specific apps for mobile devices in addition to software marketed on physical media like USB sticks. By choosing Avallain Non-Stop, they thus stand to improve their market share in areas with strong preferences towards offline digital distribution models, such as China and the USA.

The Campus Difusión mobile app is set for further growth

Of course, this focus on further development also includes the app itself. Both companies are determined to use all of the advantages of mobile devices to further enhance learners’ individual learning experiences and improve options for teachers by allowing interactive learning materials to be accessed and shared from anywhere.We are already developing new features to be included in future versions of the Campus app, such as the option for teachers to ask live questions or screen sharing capabilities for students. Thus, we are sure to provide Spanish learners and teachers with the best possible user experience to support their education on- and off-Campus.

As the needs of learners and teachers change and evolve, so does the authoring tool used to meet these needs. With the rollout of Avallain Author version 4.5, we have once again listened closely to the wishes and suggestions of our customers, which were loud and clear: Even more options for gamification and digital mathematics, more streamlining and better scaling of production processes. Thus, version 4.5 is all about increasing options for content creators, while simultaneously offering a user experience that is better than ever.

New Activity Type: Catch

This new Activity Type allows our customers to create tasks in which learners have to catch moving objects on the screen. This can be used for tasks where learners have to identify and catch multiple correct answers to a question – or to add a spin to the traditional multiple-choice formula. One way or another, Catch gives content creators another tool to bring gamification elements into their learning materials, encouraging users to employ a self-directed approach to solve meaningful tasks in an effort to elicit intrinsic motivation in learners.

New Activity Type: Maths

Expanding the capabilities of Avallain Author further into the realm of mathematics, the new Activity Type Maths gives content creators the tools necessary to add more numeracy tasks to their Learning Objects. After number pyramids and number beams, version 4.5 adds equations and word problems, opening up the potential scope of learning content immensely.

Enhanced Bookmaker functionality

Version 4.5 also includes several enhancements to the Bookmaker, Avallain Author’s integrated editor for creating interactive digital books:

• Double-click anywhere to create fully customisable hotspots such as animations, videos or audios.
• Avoid accidentally deleting hotspots thanks to new confirmation dialog.
• Previews always open on the currently edited page.Preview and save buttons are always available as floating buttons.
• Warning when closing Bookmaker with unsaved changes.

These enhancements make all aspects of digital book production in the Bookmaker quicker and significantly more efficient.

Exporting video files in various formats

When exporting videos into offline files, content creators can now choose which file format they wish the file to be saved in. Avallain Author version 4.5 includes the most common video formats – MP4 and WEBM (and accordingly MP3 and OGG for audio files). Thus, videos can now be exported directly into their intended file formats, eliminating the time requirement, disc space usage and loss of video quality associated with re-encoding.

Additions to copy LO function

With the new version of the authoring tool, content creators can now easily copy and paste entire Learning Objects multiple times. This significantly speeds up production time, as LOs can be used as templates when creating and editing multiple similarly structured Learning Objects.

Continuous Enhancement

Together with a number of smaller new features such as the ability to output mathematical formulae as MathML files, circular hotspot areas and a convenient internet connection check function when creating LOs, the new features and enhancements of Avallain Author 4.5 mark the most advanced version of our authoring tool yet. But developing the software is a continuous process.

As Max Bondi, Product Manager for Avallain Author, puts it:

We are keen to see the various inventive ways our customers will use these latest features so we can use their input to further enhance future versions of the software. Like them, we are already looking forward to the rollout of the next version in 12 weeks.