Originally posted by Marc Tavares on March 21, 2019
Progressive Web Apps are mobile apps based on responsive webpages that are saved to your phone. It creates an app like experience and enables functionality like offline access, push notifications, and access to device hardware. The data from the webpage is cached so they’re super-fast and behave more like native apps. You can download a PWA in iOS from sites that enabled the functionality by tapping share and then add to home screen. If you’re using Chrome on Android, the site will automatically prompt you to add it to your home screen if you choose.
On a wordpress self-hosted website, adding a progressive web app is as simple as installing the SuperPWA free plugin.
At the time of writing, splash screens are not functioning correctly with the plugin in iOS, though Apple seems to regularly be adding more PWA support to its iOS.
For those with a little more web development expertise, this is an excellent course and tutorial from Google.
For some more info, here is a great resource:
https://medium.freecodecamp.org/progressive-web-apps-101-the-what-why-and-how-4aa5e9065ac2
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PWA technology could address access and equity issues (offline access with app functionality for continuous learning) for educators and students if utilized by MOOCs, LMS, and websites in general. A cursory search reveals that some MOOCs allow users to download courses for offline viewing (Coursera, for example, in their native app) and Canvas LMS courses can be downloaded as an EPUB file but this wouldn’t perform like the native app or site.
Comment originally posted by christopher wong on March 25, 2019
Thanks for the share – found out about this on your OER and it’s amazing for someone like me who doesn’t have a data plan!