LearningML started as a web application. I felt that it was the easiest way to access it, you just need a web browser and an internet connection to use the application. I was correct in assuming that potential users have stable internet access. An assumption that may be true in one part of the world, but is not true in another, surely much larger, part of the world.
In a course on AI in School (organized by the Cruzando Foundation in Chile), the debate originated and I became aware that this decision left out many students. Citizens who already suffer significant inequalities, further aggravated by the strong dependence on the Internet that education is assuming in recent times.
Thus, the idea of turning LearningML into a desktop application arose. That is, an application that could be installed on the computer (from a pendrive, for example) and that did not require an Internet connection to work. In collaboration with the Cruzando Foundation, we started working on this new project: turning LearningML into an installable desktop application.
And the time has come!
We are very happy to announce, after several months of work, that LearningML can now be installed as an application. It does not depend on the Internet. It can be used on computers with the most popular operating systems: Windows10, MacOS and Linux.
In the following table we show you the different links to download the installables. Once downloaded you can copy them to a pendrive and use LearningML-desktop on any computer, even if you do not have Internet access.
| https://web.learningml.org/lml-desktop/LearningMLDesktop-1.4.3.msi | Windows 10 |
| https://web.learningml.org/lml-desktop/LearningMLDesktop-1.4.3.dmg | MacOS |
| https://web.learningml.org/lml-desktop/learningml-desktop_1.4.3_amd64.deb | debian-based Linux systems (e.g. Ubuntu) |
| https://web.learningml.org/lml-desktop/learningml-desktop-1.4.3.x86_64.rpm | Linux systems based on CentOS |
Considering the Open Source orientation of the project, installable packages for Linux systems are especially important. That is why we have also prepared an installable based on https://snapcraft.io.
If you have a Linux system with a package manager based on this software distribution system, such as Ubuntu, you can install LearningML-desktop directly from the “Ubuntu Software” tool, or through this link:
What about the online version?
The online version is still available! Our intention is that all the improvements that will be added to this version, which will be the reference of the project, will be integrated to the desktop version.
And that’s all for now.
We hope that with this new way of accessing LearningML, the teaching of Computational Thinking and Artificial Intelligence will reach more places and help, albeit modestly, to reduce the technological and educational gap that unfortunately continues to grow.