"Workshop: Using MIT App Inventor for Creative Engagement in Computer Science Courses"

Shaileen (Shay) Pokress
Manager, Education Programs
MIT Center for Mobile Learning
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MIT App Inventor (http://appinventor.mit.edu) is a visual blocks language for building mobile apps that is freely available from MIT's Center for Mobile Learning. App Inventor enables students with no programming background to build apps for Android mobile devices. Empowering students to create their own mobile apps engages them personally and can infuse much-needed energy and excitement into computer science education. This workshop is targeted at faculty teaching introductory computer science.

Today's students experience computers in a very tactile and personal way through mobile phones and tablets. MIT App Inventor (http://appinventor.mit.edu), a visual blocks language for building mobile apps, taps into these experiences to provide students with a computing environment that's not only fun and exciting, but also real world. App Inventor generates excitement among students who, many for the first time, are becoming creators of technology rather than mere consumers of it. App Inventor allows these new programmers to make their app ideas a reality, taking full advantage of the affordances of the powerful mobile computers many carry with us daily. Educators both in and out of school universally report that students are drawn in by the "wow factor" of being able to create their own apps with meaningful utility that can be shown off to friends and family and even put on the app market.

The workshop will allow attendees to explore App Inventor through hands-on development of working Android Apps. We will lead participants through the basics of App Inventor, will create the first "Hello World app, and then will proceed to make a paint pot application that allows the user to take a picture using the device's camera and then to draw with his or her finger on top of the picture in multiple colors of "ink".