App inventor for android

Abstract

Google's App Inventor for Android (AIA) is the newest visual "blocks" programming language designed to introduce students to programming through creation of mobile applications (apps). AIA opens up the world of mobile apps to novice programmers. Success stories of using AIA to introduce college students to programming exist.We used AIA in computing summer camps for high school students that we offer at our university. This paper is an experience report about using AIA in our camps. We provide a detailed description of designing our camps with AIA including the process of selecting and setting-up an Android device and instructional materials that we developed and made available to everyone. We evaluated our camps through surveys to determine the effects on the students. We found that there was mostly a slight increase in the favorable disposition towards computing. We also share our successes with using AIA and what still needs improvement for wider use.

Summer Coding Camp: Curriculum, Experiences, and Evaluation

“…' Sabin et. al. showed that a summer learning experience for girls in 7th -9th grade using App Inventor boosted computing confidence and interest in computing careers 7 , and similar results were reported by 9,10 11 . All identifiable information of the participants, such as their names, was removed from the dataset prior to data analysis.…”

“…Recent work has shown that code camps that highlight computing in the context of digital humanities (DH) have shown positive results in increasing student's self-efficacy and interest in computing 5,6,7,8,9 . One key decision about the code camp offering was the choice of programming language (or coding platform).…”

Facilitating K-12 Teachers in Creating Apps by Visual Programming and Project-based Learning

“…Teaching AIA would also be an interesting topic to attract students to choose computer science field in their future. Roy conducted a AIA summer camp for middle and high school students to introduce computing [26]. Students' disposition towards computing slight increased after the summer camp.…”

A Comprehensive Study on Application Development Software Systems

“…After coding all the plug-ins and commands that you want to program to have, click the "run app" button at the top, and the program will ask you to add a device where the user wants to test the app in, and if the user doesn't have device, the app can simulate the app running on a real smartphone [21]. The application will notify the programmer as its building the app if there is a problem in the code because it can't run the code if it has a mistake in it.…”