SberClass: mobile app
We have created a convenient access point to the digital platform of personalized school education for owners of mobile devices.
Client
EdTech company "SberObrazovanie" is part of the Sber ecosystem. It specializes in the introduction of digital tools that expand the capabilities of the traditional educational system and make individual learning more accessible.
Task
Develop from scratch within a short time and support a cross-platform mobile version of the digital educational service SberClass for iOS and Android. An application belonging to the category of learning Management system or LMS (Learning Management Systems) that provides students of Russia and CIS countries with the following opportunities:
● Get access to various digital courses and assignments available on the platform.
● Build a personalized educational route based on individual abilities and preferences.
● Perform both individual and team (paired, group) tasks.
● Centrally monitor the progress of educational activities.
● Perform tasks in a convenient format — online, offline, remotely at home, or in class, together with the class.
● Develop soft skills, learn to set educational goals independently, and achieve them.
Challenges
A comprehensive student tool
The SberClass is not an alternative, but a means of "upgrading" the general education program. This application contains the best digital technologies and the latest methodological developments that allow for improving the involvement, motivation, and effectiveness of schoolchildren through an individual approach to learning.
Materials on various subjects are divided into separate blocks. They can be combined as a constructor, adapting educational content to the characteristics and preferences of the student.
All modules and submodules are linked to the relevant sections of the general school curriculum and have no age restrictions. The assimilation of subject blocks facilitates the addition of elements of interactivity and gamification, as well as a combination of individual and group classes.
High Availability Platform
The SberClass opens up personalized learning opportunities for everyone. With the help of the application, you can get full access to the materials of educational modules at any time, from any mobile device, anywhere — in class, at school, or at home. Tasks can be performed online and offline.
Remote teacher assistance
The application should become not only a guide in self-development for the student but also a reliable assistant to the school teacher. The automation technologies implemented in it make it easier for the teacher to perform daily tasks. With the help of the SberClass, the teacher spends less valuable time on routine in order to pay more attention to mentoring — the development of cognitive and creative skills of schoolchildren.
Compatibility with the general education program allows you to integrate work with modules into the structure of the classroom and extracurricular activities. The platform offers the teacher various ways to check assignments.
Learning through strength
The concept of personalized learning implies an individual selection of the educational curve and differentiation of the pace of its development. Adaptive algorithms based on artificial intelligence, which are the basis of the platform, allow you to set the degree of complexity of materials, as well as the speed of their submission, depending on the level of learning abilities of individual schoolchildren.
Progress under control
In the SberClass, as befits an LMS application, special attention is paid to the mechanisms for tracking the student's personal progress. The assessment of academic performance is based on the points that a student receives when completing educational modules. Progress in each subject is reflected in a convenient graphical form.
Soft skills are a priority
One of the main features of the educational platform is its focus on the development of a full range of soft skills among school children. These universal competencies should increase the effectiveness of studies and become a reliable support in further professional activity.
The SberClass mobile application develops all three groups of soft skills: cognitive, social, and emotional. This is achieved through an optimal balance of different types of tasks in the daily schedule, as well as the integration of soft skills directly into the tasks in the subject areas.
This approach allows you to simultaneously improve the quality of individual information processing, the ability to work in a team, and the ability to manage your own emotional state.
Legal Regulations
The distance learning technologies underlying the SberClass application fully comply with the norms of the Federal State Educational Standard, as well as the requirements imposed by the federal laws regulating the implementation of digital learning platforms.
How we did it
We have ensured the compatibility of technologies
A special feature of the project is a development based on a ready—made backend (Java, Spring Boot, GraphQL) and a design provided by the customer. In order for the front end of the mobile version to match the server side and meet high-quality requirements, a technologically compatible TypeScript / React stack was selected for its development. Effector was used to develop the data layer, and communication with the backend was provided via GraphQL (Apollo-client).
Conducted a preliminary study
The main blocks of the SberClass application (Student profile, Subjects, Media Library, Module Map) are quite different in structure and functionality. In order to ensure their mutual compatibility and avoid mistakes, before developing each large block, we carried out the technical design of its functionality. Further practical implementation was based on the data obtained during the project study.
Optimized the process
In order for the MVP version of the SberClass to be ready in the three months agreed with the customer, our team needed to creatively approach the architecture of the development application. The main functionality was implemented on separate screens, and it was decided to bring numerous game and interactive elements to the browser operating inside the application. After testing the theories and releasing the MVP version, WebView was replaced with a full-fledged native implementation.
Connected designers
A separate challenge for us was the task of adapting in a short time a huge array of educational content, which included tasks of various types, for mobile layout. The close cooperation of our programmers and in-house designers of the platform helped us to be on time and not lose anything important. To make such a bundle productive, the developers had high competencies in planning and organizing team interaction using the Agile methodology.
Automated verification
To check the effectiveness of the tasks, it was necessary to carry out automatic annotation of images. Due to the huge variety of tests and types of content, the use of ready-made solutions was excluded. Our team had to develop image annotation modules from scratch — separately for iOS and Android.
Provided communication
Although the SberClass is designed primarily for schoolchildren, its most important element is the high involvement of the teacher in the educational process. To facilitate two-way communication and ensure the controllability of the process, we have added the teacher-student chat functionality to each task.
Result
The working MVP version of the SberClass mobile application was created within the deadline set by the customer — 3 months. The app supports an adaptive native layout and works on all types of iOS and Android devices, including tablets.
In the process, we managed not only to adapt the platform to the mobile format but also to significantly improve the technical characteristics — to increase responsiveness, speed up the time of displaying content, and reduced traffic consumption when using the application.
Today, the SberClass successfully complements the general education program in thousands of schools across Russia.
Client
EdTech company "SberObrazovanie" is part of the Sber ecosystem. It specializes in the introduction of digital tools that expand the capabilities of the traditional educational system and make individual learning more accessible.
Task
Develop from scratch within a short time and support a cross-platform mobile version of the digital educational service SberClass for iOS and Android. An application belonging to the category of learning Management system or LMS (Learning Management Systems) that provides students of Russia and CIS countries with the following opportunities:
● Get access to various digital courses and assignments available on the platform.
● Build a personalized educational route based on individual abilities and preferences.
● Perform both individual and team (paired, group) tasks.
● Centrally monitor the progress of educational activities.
● Perform tasks in a convenient format — online, offline, remotely at home, or in class, together with the class.
● Develop soft skills, learn to set educational goals independently, and achieve them.
Challenges
A comprehensive student tool
The SberClass is not an alternative, but a means of "upgrading" the general education program. This application contains the best digital technologies and the latest methodological developments that allow for improving the involvement, motivation, and effectiveness of schoolchildren through an individual approach to learning.
Materials on various subjects are divided into separate blocks. They can be combined as a constructor, adapting educational content to the characteristics and preferences of the student.
All modules and submodules are linked to the relevant sections of the general school curriculum and have no age restrictions. The assimilation of subject blocks facilitates the addition of elements of interactivity and gamification, as well as a combination of individual and group classes.
High Availability Platform
The SberClass opens up personalized learning opportunities for everyone. With the help of the application, you can get full access to the materials of educational modules at any time, from any mobile device, anywhere — in class, at school, or at home. Tasks can be performed online and offline.
Remote teacher assistance
The application should become not only a guide in self-development for the student but also a reliable assistant to the school teacher. The automation technologies implemented in it make it easier for the teacher to perform daily tasks. With the help of the SberClass, the teacher spends less valuable time on routine in order to pay more attention to mentoring — the development of cognitive and creative skills of schoolchildren.
Compatibility with the general education program allows you to integrate work with modules into the structure of the classroom and extracurricular activities. The platform offers the teacher various ways to check assignments.
Learning through strength
The concept of personalized learning implies an individual selection of the educational curve and differentiation of the pace of its development. Adaptive algorithms based on artificial intelligence, which are the basis of the platform, allow you to set the degree of complexity of materials, as well as the speed of their submission, depending on the level of learning abilities of individual schoolchildren.
Progress under control
In the SberClass, as befits an LMS application, special attention is paid to the mechanisms for tracking the student's personal progress. The assessment of academic performance is based on the points that a student receives when completing educational modules. Progress in each subject is reflected in a convenient graphical form.
Soft skills are a priority
One of the main features of the educational platform is its focus on the development of a full range of soft skills among school children. These universal competencies should increase the effectiveness of studies and become a reliable support in further professional activity.
The SberClass mobile application develops all three groups of soft skills: cognitive, social, and emotional. This is achieved through an optimal balance of different types of tasks in the daily schedule, as well as the integration of soft skills directly into the tasks in the subject areas.
This approach allows you to simultaneously improve the quality of individual information processing, the ability to work in a team, and the ability to manage your own emotional state.
Legal Regulations
The distance learning technologies underlying the SberClass application fully comply with the norms of the Federal State Educational Standard, as well as the requirements imposed by the federal laws regulating the implementation of digital learning platforms.
How we did it
We have ensured the compatibility of technologies
A special feature of the project is a development based on a ready—made backend (Java, Spring Boot, GraphQL) and a design provided by the customer. In order for the front end of the mobile version to match the server side and meet high-quality requirements, a technologically compatible TypeScript / React stack was selected for its development. Effector was used to develop the data layer, and communication with the backend was provided via GraphQL (Apollo-client).
Conducted a preliminary study
The main blocks of the SberClass application (Student profile, Subjects, Media Library, Module Map) are quite different in structure and functionality. In order to ensure their mutual compatibility and avoid mistakes, before developing each large block, we carried out the technical design of its functionality. Further practical implementation was based on the data obtained during the project study.
Optimized the process
In order for the MVP version of the SberClass to be ready in the three months agreed with the customer, our team needed to creatively approach the architecture of the development application. The main functionality was implemented on separate screens, and it was decided to bring numerous game and interactive elements to the browser operating inside the application. After testing the theories and releasing the MVP version, WebView was replaced with a full-fledged native implementation.
Connected designers
A separate challenge for us was the task of adapting in a short time a huge array of educational content, which included tasks of various types, for mobile layout. The close cooperation of our programmers and in-house designers of the platform helped us to be on time and not lose anything important. To make such a bundle productive, the developers had high competencies in planning and organizing team interaction using the Agile methodology.
Automated verification
To check the effectiveness of the tasks, it was necessary to carry out automatic annotation of images. Due to the huge variety of tests and types of content, the use of ready-made solutions was excluded. Our team had to develop image annotation modules from scratch — separately for iOS and Android.
Provided communication
Although the SberClass is designed primarily for schoolchildren, its most important element is the high involvement of the teacher in the educational process. To facilitate two-way communication and ensure the controllability of the process, we have added the teacher-student chat functionality to each task.
Result
The working MVP version of the SberClass mobile application was created within the deadline set by the customer — 3 months. The app supports an adaptive native layout and works on all types of iOS and Android devices, including tablets.
In the process, we managed not only to adapt the platform to the mobile format but also to significantly improve the technical characteristics — to increase responsiveness, speed up the time of displaying content, and reduced traffic consumption when using the application.
Today, the SberClass successfully complements the general education program in thousands of schools across Russia.