High school girls: sign up for this amazing after school program:
Software developers and entrepreneurs: sign up to be mentors
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Technovation Challenge: Sign up!
Posted on November 16, 2012 by wolber
Enter the MIT App Inventor App Contest
Posted on November 9, 2012 by wolber
MIT App Inventor App Contest 2012
Who: Everyone is eligible, see categories below
Why: To promote App Inventor, the App Inventor Gallery, and mobile programming for all!
When: Submission Deadline is Midnight, December 12, 2012, (Pacific Time)
Where: The App Inventor Community Gallery (http://gallery.appinventor.mit.edu)
Prize Categories
Most Outstanding App: grades K-8, 9-12, College/University, Open
Prizes (each category)
1st Place: Google Nexus 7 Tablet
2nd Place: App Inventor Book ( http://bit.ly/AppInventorBook )
Contest Criteria
Creativity
How novel is the app? What app(s) is it similar to, and what is the value-add of the app?
Potential Impact
What is the potential impact of the app? Who will it help, and how will it help them?
Complexity
How complex is the app in terms of blocks, logic, and programming concepts.
User Experience and Presentation
Does the app have a well-designed, professional-looking user-interface? Is it easy to use for the intended audience, even the first time they use the app?
Completeness
Is the app complete or close to it? Has it been user-tested or deployed with real users?
To Enter the Contest:
1) Join the MIT App Inventor Community Gallery
(The Gallery is in Beta, go to http://gallery.appinventor.mit.edu to request full access).
2) Develop an app using App Inventor (http://beta.appinventor.mit.edu),
3) Upload your app to the App Inventor Community Gallery.
4) Fill out the contest submission form at: http://bit.ly/AIContestEntryForm
5) You may edit your app and form entry until the contest deadline of 12/12/12. Be sure and save the “edit form” link when your initial submission is confirmed.
More info: email contest organizer, USF Professor David Wolber, wolberd@usfca.edu
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: android, app inventor, contest | 6 Comments »
National Science Foundation Grant for Teaching App Inventor
Posted on August 27, 2012 by wolber
The National Science Foundation has awarded a $565,836 grant in support of mobile programming education with App Inventor. Its
a TUES Grant, which stands for Transforming Undergraduate Education in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.
The project involves Wellesley College, MIT, Trinity, U. Mass, Lowell, and the University of San Francisco (my school). We’ll be building on-line, Khan-academy-like tools for App Inventor, with the goal of teaching computational thinking to beginners, especially non-CS-students. Many thanks to Franklyn Turbak of Wellesley, who led the proposal process, and Hal Abelson of MIT who leads the App Inventor project. Here are all the Project leads:
Hal Abelson, MIT
Lyn Turbak, Wellesley
Ralph Morelli, Trinity
Fred Martin, UMass-Lowell
David Wolber, USF
Filed under: success stories | Tagged: android, app inventor, programming | 5 Comments »
Learn App Inventor with Video Tutorials
Posted on August 18, 2012 by wolber
App Inventor Book available at Amazon
Check out appinventor.org/projects. I’ve added video screencast lessons and other teaching materials to complement the original App Inventor tutorials. These are the tutorials originally written for the App Inventor site and then refined for the book App Inventor: Create your own Android Apps (which I co-authored with App Inventor creators Hal Abelson, Ellen Spertus, and Liz Looney). I’ve also added some new video tutorials not found in the book, one for an arcade shooting game (see above) and one for a note-taking app.
The video is best watched full screen HD, and each tutorial is split into 5 minute portions.
Filed under: screencasts, teaching | Tagged: android, app inventor, programming | 4 Comments »
BusinessWeek.com on University of San Francisco and App Inventor
Posted on July 19, 2012 by wolber
Andrea and Kelly building an app
USF students Andrea Conway and Kelly Lazzara are featured in this BusinessWeek.com video report on App Inventor and our course at USF.
Filed under: students, success stories | Tagged: android, app inventor, usf | 20 Comments »
Mr. President: App inventing and what our schools can be
Posted on July 19, 2012 by wolber
AMSA tacher Padmaja Bandaru with her students at the MIT App Inventor summit
They take a computer science course each and every semester. They build mobile apps. They learn using a visual language, App Inventor, that allows them to create their first app within an hour and sophisticated ones within days. They become so excited about programming phones that they join the Technovation after-school program and spend their afternoons learning more programming and entrepreneurship skills. One app– an educational one about Mitosis and Meiosis, wins the regional competition and a trip to California. Who are these kids? They’re the students from the Advanced Science and Math Academy (ASMA), a public charter school in Marlborough Massachusetts, and, President Obama, they are exactly what America needs!
Two AMSA students discussing their app with MIT professor Hal Abelson
I met these incredible students and learned about their fabulous school at the MIT App Inventor Summit. The students were invited to MIT along with their teachers, Kelly Powers and Padmaja Bandaru, two women who should be given millions of stimulus dollars for their exemplary work.
The students demonstrated their projects, talked tech with App Inventor project lead Hal Abelson and the other conference attendees, and with great aplomb illustrated how App Inventor can help change the face of education.
AMSA students with Padmaja Bandaru, Hal Abelson, MIT super student Logan Mercer and yours truly, David Wolber from USF
You hear everywhere how we’re not educating our kids for life in the 21st century. What should the President do? Call Kelly Powers and Padmaja Bandaru at the AMSA school!
Filed under: students, success stories | Tagged: android, app inventor, stem | 29 Comments »
Testing SMS Texting apps with app inventor
Posted on July 15, 2012 by wolber
two emulators used to test an app inventor app
I stumbled upon a solution to a long-standing issue I’ve had with App Inventor which is how to test, without a phone, apps that process SMS texts in some way. The issue is important because not all schools and developers have phones, but texting apps are fun and important so you’d like to be able to develop and test them even if you don’t have an Android.
So I was trying to build a screencast for the No Texting While Driving tutorial, and I wanted to be able to test/show the app on-screen. So I googled (go figure) and found out that the emulator id# serves as a phone number (go figure again, and why didn’t I try this before). So the solution is to open multiple emulators (click new emulator in app inventor twice). Connect one of them to app inventor and run the app on it, then use the normal texting app on the other to text the emulator running the app (with phone number something like 5554)
So now you can build/test SMS texting apps without owning an Android phone. I’m happy!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: android, app inventor, programming | 6 Comments »
Pure Vida Aps
Posted on June 4, 2012 by wolber
http://puravidaapps.com/ is a great site with lots of block snippets and explanations. Check it out!
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Technovation teaching teachers App Inventor
Posted on May 24, 2012 by wolber
The great team at Technovation is giving a workshop this summer for teachers. Here’s the info:
Technovation for Teachers: Summer Institute to Teach App Inventor
The Technovation Challenge has been teaching high school girls how to build mobile phone apps using App Inventor since 2010. Why should the girls get all the fun? Technovation is expanding to teachers with their first ever Summer Institute in Silicon Valley.
This week-long Technovation bootcamp will teach participants all stages of the app development process from the entrepreneurial process to design thinking to using App Inventor. Teachers can get CEUs for participating.
Teachers will leave with thorough knowledge of App Inventor, an app prototype, and the tools and curriculum to teach App Inventor in their own classroom (and maybe even set up a Technovation club!).
When: July 30- August 3
Where: Silicon Valley
Cost: $400
Learn more: www.technovationchallenge.org
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USF students to pitch MS app in Cape Town, South Africa
Posted on May 15, 2012 by wolber
Two humanities students took an App Inventor course and built a prototype; two graduates in computer science pushed the project along by building a more complete version using Java. Together, this uncommon comingling of students is competing in an international mobile health (m-health) contest. And they just make the lives of thousands suffering from Multiple Sclerosis (MS) just a little bit easier!
The school is University of San Francisco. The humanities students are Dylan Hindenlang and Samantha Lam, who walked into a core curriculum computer science course and will end their year traveling to Cape Town to pitch their project. The graduate students are Chen Chen and Yaoli Zheng, who for their final project in a Mobile Programming course worked with the humanities students and a person with MS to build a sophisticated piece of software. The contest is the GSMA Mobile Health Challenge to be held at the Mobile Health Summit 2012.
Yaoli Zheng, Chen Chen, Profesor David Wolber, Dylan Hindenlang, and Samantha Lam
Filed under: students, success stories | Tagged: android, app inventor, mhealth | 1 Comment »
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