CS4HS with App InventorMay 18, 2012

Jeff Gray, Ph.D. - Associate Professor

University of AlabamaDepartment of Computer Sciencegray@cs.ua.eduhttp://www.cs.ua.edu/~gray

Initial Links This talk

http://www.cs.ua.edu/~gray/external/google-cs4hs/cs4hs-appinventor.ppt A more detailed talk on CS Principles and App Inventor

http://www.cs.ua.edu/~gray/external/acmse2012/acmse-csprinciples-appinventor-tutorial.ppt Photos from our 2011 CS4HS

https://picasaweb.google.com/115149721412395648937/2011GoogleCS4HSAtUA

For more info…

MIT Center for Mobile Learning main site http://appinventor.mit.edu/ Educator’s Site Links to many Google Newsgroups

Dave Wolber’s App Inventor Site http://www.appinventor.org/

The App Inventor Repository http://www.tair.info/

Three quality books on the topic

Observation: Teaching CS – 1980s style Typical example was text-based, trivial, and

uninspiring

Motivation: New and Exciting Contexts Media Computation

Programming in a more exciting context by manipulating multimedia artifacts

Robots Lego NXT

2D/3D Animation Environments Alice, Scratch, AgentSheets

Motivation: Newest Context Teen smartphone penetration around 62%1

Novel ways to engage through the “creative hook” and tinkering

“I wish I had an app for that”

Social networking and crowd sourcing a daily activity among teens

Increasing adoption of smartphones in science and medical applications

1http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/168085/nielsen-smartphone-penetration-reaches-48.html

App Inventor Overview

2007: Open Blocks Java Library developed as Masters thesis of Ricarose Roque at MIT

Hal Abelson becomes visiting faculty member at Google

2009: App Inventor Pilot begins in 2009 2011: Google closes Google Labs 2011: MIT announces new Center for Mobile

Learning February 2012: New App Inventor server available

at MIT

App Inventor Overview Purpose

Teaching Prototyping

Overview Designer

GUI builder Block Editor

Provide behavior behind the GUI Based on MIT OpenBlocks and Scratch

Designer Provides a WYSIWYG editor for designing the

visual parts of the app Also provides ability to attach non-visual

components

Blocks Editor Provides an ability to give behavior

to an app; the programming part Typical and expected basic

predefined constructs (logic, conditionals, iteration)

Ability to refer to the components and their properties from the Designer

Very similar to Scratch Built on Open Blocks library from MIT

CS4HS 2011 Approach

1st Day: Block language like Scratch and BYOB; CS Principles; Why Study CS Talk

2nd Day: Introduction to App Inventor; Group and individual exercises Each teacher received an App Inventor book HelloPurr, PaintPot, Molemash, Quizzes

3rd Day: Teacher Project time

2012 Focus is on CS Principles Pilot Info using App Inventor

Interesting result from 2011… Gina McCarley, a participant in our CS4HS

2011, won a Samsung STEM competition using an app she created with students

The App Inventor app helps to track the overpopulation of wild hogs in her county

$100,000 prize

https://pages.samsung.com/us/sft/video/index.jsp

High School Summer Camps

http://www.cs.ua.edu/outreach/camps/ Week 3 focuses on App Inventor Approach: Mixes block language and Java

Other item: App Inventor Java Bridge Provides a Java .jar file for accessing the App Inventor

components and writing Java apps in Eclipse (much easier than standard Android SDK)

UA student Chris Hodapp extending work initiated by Josh Swank to provide a translator from Blocks to Java

Video on Java Bridge http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnEG7_Et4UA

App Inventor Live Demo… Traditional Blocks Language

Overview of environment Hands-on app building (time limited) Samples from CS4HS