shay's blog

Hour of Code with App Inventor

shay — Wed, 06 Nov 2013 21:50:12 +0000

Code.org and the Computing in the Core coalition are coming together to provide an array of "Hour of Code" activities for this year's Computer Science Education Week taking place on December 9 - 15, 2013.

We are pleased to be offering new tutorials in the form of short, user-friendly videos that anyone can follow to build their first mobile apps. Check out the preview of our Hour of Code!

Genre:

Announcement

SIGCSE App Inventor Workshop - Atlanta, GA March 5-8, 2014

shay — Mon, 14 Oct 2013 17:24:13 +0000

The Computational Thinking Through Mobile Computing project, funded by NSF Transforming Undergraduate Education in STEM, is pleased to be invited to host a workshop at SIGCSE this coming March. More information on this 3-hour hands-on workshop on App Inventor 2 will be forthcoming. Watch this space for updates!

Genre:

Event

App Inventor featured in CSTA Voice

shay — Tue, 25 Jun 2013 19:34:33 +0000

Creative Engagement with Technology: There's an App for That!

I recently teamed up with CS teacher Kristin Violette to write an article for the July issue of CSTA Voice. In the article we chronicle how Kristin's students at Newtown High School in Connecticut have used App Inventor to forge a personalized connection between CS and their local community. Kristin and I will be presenting at the CSTA Annual Conference in Quincy, MA on July 16th. We hope to see you there! Read the full article...

Read the full article...

Computer Science Educators embrace App Inventor at SIGCSE

shay — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 15:19:31 +0000

Ahh, Denver in March: Sunny and 60 on Thursday, blizzard on Saturday... but we had a blast!

I am happy to report that the 44th annual meeting of the Special Interest Group in Computer Science Education (SIGCSE) was a wonderful success, and that App Inventor was well represented by educators from all over the country.

Over 1100 attendees met for three days of sharing research, collaborating, catching up, and learning from one another. While this was only my second time attending this conference, I felt as if I was visiting my extended family. It's invigorating to be surrounded by so many people who are working toward the same goals and who care about the same issues: increasing access to quality computer science education for all people. This year's theme was "The Changing Face of Computing" and throughout the conference keynote speakers talked about issues surrounding diversity in computing. I was especially moved by the closing speech given by Jane Margolis. She told us about her days as a telephone repair technician (complete with a photo of her in a harness hanging from a pole!) and she connected that experience with what is happening today in technical fields. Women and minorities continue to be underrepresented in STEM, most egregiously in computing. Dr. Margolis issued a call for all of us to rise to the challenge of changing this paradigm, emphasizing the relationship of this work to a larger educational crisis and issues we face as world citizens.

It was gratifying to see the breadth of papers and workshops focused on App Inventor (listed below) at this year's SIGCSE Conference. You can read the papers by clicking the titles which link directly to the PDFs on the conference website.

Papers

Studio-Based Learning and App Inventor for Android in an Introductory CS Course for Non-Majors
Khuloud Ahmad, Paul Gestwicki, Ball State University

Using a Discourse-Intensive Pedagogy and Androidʼs App Inventor for Introducing Computational Concepts to Middle School Students
Shuchi Grover, Roy Pea, Stanford University

Using App Inventor in K-12 Summer Camp
Amber Wagner, Jeff Gray, Jonathan Corley, University of Alabama
David Wolber (Co-author) University of San Francisco

Going Mobile with App Inventor for Android – A One-Week Computing Workshop for K-12 Teachers
Phillip Potter, Zebulun Barnett, Jiangjiang Liu, Ethan Hasson, Jiangjiang Liu, Lamar University

Workshops

Teaching the CS Principles Curriculum with App Inventor
Ralph Morelli, Trinity College
David Wolber, University of San Francisco
Shaileen Pokress, MIT Media Lab
Fred Martin, University of Massachusetts Lowell
Franklyn Turbak, Wellesley College
The CS Principles Project is an NSF-funded initiative to develop a breadth-first advanced placement (AP) course in computer science. App Inventor is a visual, blocks-based programming language that makes sophisticated computing concepts accessible to a broad range of students. This hands-on workshop, aimed at high school and undergraduate teachers, will introduce participants to lessons, homework exercises, project assignments, and assessment materials (quizzes, grading rubrics) that can be used in an App Inventor-based CS0 course. Participants will develop simple Android apps, using devices provided by the workshop, and will use them in the context of lessons and assignments that fit within the CS Principles framework. A laptop is required.

How to Plan and Run Computing Summer Camps for 4th-12th Grade Students
Barbara Ericson, Georgia Institute of Technology
Christopher Michaud, Marist School
Nannette Napier, Georgia Gwinnett College
Krishnendu Roy, Valdosta State University
This workshop will provide details on how to run non-residential computing summer camps for 4th – 12th grade students. Georgia Tech has been offering camps since 2004. These camps are financially self- sustaining and effective. Items used include: Scratch, Alice, LEGO robots (WeDo, NXT, and Tetrix), and App Inventor. Georgia Tech has also helped start 11 other computing camps in Georgia. The workshop will include forms, a timeline, sample agendas, sample flyers, budget plans, a planning checklist, suggested projects, surveys, pre and post tests, evaluation results, and more. Intended audience: high school teachers and undergraduate faculty that are interested in creating computing summer camps for 4th – 12th grade students. Laptop recommended

MIT CML at Mobile World Congress

shay — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 20:02:21 +0000

Leo Burd and I have recovered from jetlag and are ready to report on our trip to the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona February 25-28. We went to MWC to represent the MIT Center for Mobile Learning as part of the unX network, a partnership with CSEV, UNED, Telefónica, and Banco Santander that is creating the first learning and entrepreneurship portal for Latin America.

The MWC conference was HUGE! Over 70,000 people attended from all over the world, and representing every branch of industry related to mobile devices.

We found our niche in the Spain Pavilion, where many people stopped to hear about unX and App Inventor. Leo Burd was part of a presentation about the success of unX, along with several other key players including Mr. Victor Calvo-Sotelo, the Spanish Secretary of State for Telecommunications, and Mr. Cesar Alierta, President of Telefónica Group. During the presentation, we officially announced that unX was now available in both Portuguese and Spanish for anyone to join in.

While the presentation was going on in the Spanish pavilion, I (Shaileen Pokress) was busy giving a talk to a packed room as part of the mEducation panel. There was overwhelming interest in the topic of mobile technology for education, as evidenced by the extremely long line outside the door (most were turned away due to lack of space.) I'm certain that MWC will provide a larger space at next year's conference for this topic.

The presenters and panelists at the mEducation session were:

Graham Brown-Martin, Education Design Labs
Peggy Johnson, Qualcomm
George Held, Etisalat
Florence Gaudry-Perkins, Alcatel-Lucent
Vanessa Lucio, Telefonica Learning Services
Shaileen Pokress,MIT Center for Mobile Learning

We each had a different take on what "mobile education" means, and how mobile technologies can change the landscape of schooling. While most of the points made by my co-presenters had to do with educational content for mobile devices, I made sure to emphasize that the Center for Mobile Learning aims to provide ways for students to create their own mobile learning tools and experiences.

Well, this post has gotten longer than I'd intended. Up next... SIGCSE 2013. App Inventor was well represented, and our team made it home despite the snow storm! Stay tuned...

First App Inventor Contest: Winners Announced!

shay — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 20:18:20 +0000

The 2012 App Inventor Contest had 125 submissions in four categories: K-8, High School, College/University, and Open. Google Nexus 7 Tablets are awarded to the 1st place winners, with App Inventor books given for second place. Participants included students as young as third grade, college students, hobbyists, professional developers, and even some self-described "retired old ladies"! Read about the prize winners and view all of the amazing apps in the newly opened App Inventor Gallery.

NEW RELEASE brings sprite flinging, wifi texting, and more!

shay — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 18:06:30 +0000

We have great news: the new release of App Inventor is now live, and contains some exciting new functionality. Be sure to read the release notes for the entire list of updates. Here are the highlights:

Sprites and Canvas can now respond to Fling, TouchDown, and TouchUp gestures. This offers a lot of potential for new games and interactive apps! Try out the Mini Golf tutorial that shows you how to build a fun app that takes advantage of these new gesture events. The tutorial also offers a nice example for setting up screen components dynamically so that they look great on any size screen.
Support for Google Fusion Tables has been updated. You can now build apps that read and write to a Google Fusion Table, providing a powerful data sharing solution. See the new Pizza Party tutorial for a how-to guide on creating fusion tables and connecting to them through App Inventor.
Texting is now enabled over wifi for phones without cell service (no SIM card)! While the traditional SMS texting over a cell phone provider still works just fine, this new capability allows you to connect to your Google Voice account so that texts can be sent and received on devices that are only connected through wifi. See How To Guide to Wifi Texting with App Inventor
The packaging process now uses the zipalign tool so that applications can be placed in the Play store.
There is now a Progress Bar that displays while you are building your app.
See other updates, fixes, and notes in the v130 Release Notes.

Finally, check out the App Contest, taking place now in the App Inventor Gallery.

Happy Inventing! ~Shay

New Release: Screen arrangements, resizable video, and more

shay — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 00:18:58 +0000

Announcing the newest App Inventor release!
Version 129 is now live. In addition to a few bug fixes and minor User Interface improvements, here are the exciting new features:

Resize-able and Full Screen Video support. You can now resize an existing Video Player component from the blocks editor. In Android 2.0+ you can set a Video Player to use the entire phone's screen. The key will restore it to its original size. The VideoWall tutorial is a good place to start to check this out!
Horizontal and Vertical Arrangements can now align their contents. Arrangements and Screens can now align their contents along Left, Right, Center, Top and Bottom edges.
NOTE: These settings have no effect if the arrangement size is set to automatic. The vertical setting has no effect if the screen is scrollable.
Canvas and Sprite Improvements. The new events "Flung", "TouchUP" and "TouchDown" have been added to Sprites and Canvases.
- Flung: When a user touches a Sprite and then quickly swipes their finger in some direction, a "Flung" event is issued for the Sprite which gives the direction and speed of the swipe. This can be used to determine the direction and relative speed to move a Sprite. Canvases also receive a Flung event so a user can perform the swiping (Fling) motion anywhere on a Canvas and the MIT App Inventor programmer can decide how to handle it.
- TouchDown/TouchUp: When a user places their finger on a Sprite, a TouchDown event is now triggered. When they lift their finger a TouchUP event is triggered. These events are in addition to the existing "Touched" event.
New screen orientation settings: (1) User (let's the app's user select portrait or landscape; and (2) Sensor (auto-rotates as the phone rotates)

Tutorials corresponding to these new features are coming soon so stay tuned. H*app*y Inventing!

App Inventor Summit Archive Now Available

shay — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 20:27:01 +0000

The MIT Center for Mobile Learning hosted a two-day summit in Cambridge, MA on July 13-14 ,2012. This meeting allowed time for the 80 attendees to form small working groups to develop strategic plans to guide the future of the App Inventor project. Also, invited presenters shared the work they are doing with App Inventor.

An archive of the summit is now available with links to presenters' slides and outcomes from the six working groups. Working group topics included:

Community/Outreach
Curriculum & Resources
Professional Development
Technical Improvements
Research
CS Education

The App Inventor Team at the MIT Center for Mobile Learning would like to thank all of you who took busy time out of your summer schedules to come and spend time with us. We intend to host more events like this in the future!

Ed Week features App Inventor as tool for engaging students

shay — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 19:56:12 +0000

Check it out: Ed Week ran a feature article on App Inventor and the power of teaching students how to build mobile apps. Many excellent programs are described in the article, including Youth APPLab, Technovation, Youth Radio, and others. My favorite quote is from an eighth grade girl: "These programs expand your view on careers like computer science and engineering and show the fun in them." This is what we are all about at the MIT Center for Mobile Learning!
Read the article here:
http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2012/06/13/03mobile.h05.html