App Inventor for Android Doityourself App Creation David

App Inventor for Android Do-it-yourself App Creation David Wolber, Computer Science

Talk Outline • • • App Development (i. Phone/Android) App Inventor introduction App Inventor at USF Demo: No Texting While Driving App Inventor’s Secret Sauce What you can build David Wolber, Computer Science

Smartphone market share David Wolber, Computer Science

Market share w/newbies http: //blog. nielsen. com/nielsenwire/? p=25901 David Wolber, Computer Science

Developing Apps • i. Phone – Objective C – High level tools to turn pre-existing content into an app. (e. g. , http: //www. appmakr. com/learn_more/) • Android – Java – App Inventor David Wolber, Computer Science

App Inventor • Blocks language, like plugging in puzzle pieces. • Similar to Lego Mindstorms and Scratch but for phones not robots • “Hypercard” for mobile phones, “electronic napkin” for prototyping apps • Democratizes app building. David Wolber, Computer Science

An App Inventor App What do you think this app does? David Wolber, Computer Science

The Brief History of App Inventor • Summer 2009 – Hal Abelson of MIT and Google – Pilot program with 10 schools – Public launch July 2010 David Wolber, Computer Science

App Inventor at USF • CS 107: Computing, Robots, and the Web. – 4 th semester teaching App Inventor – Now 2 sections • Students’ work cited in SF Chronicle, NY Times, Techcrunch, Wired, … • Wolber authored App Inventor tutorials • O’Reilly Video series • Co-authoring book David Wolber, Computer Science

Demo: “No Texting While Driving” • Three windows of environment • Change title, show in emulator • Add label, textbox, button for custom response • Respond with a fixed message, test • Use custom response of user • Custom response for mom • Speak it aloud David Wolber, Computer Science

Why is it so easy? • No syntax. The blocks language eliminates the need to remember and type code • Everything is right in front of you. Components and functions are in drawers. Just find, drag, and drop. • Events at top level. "When this happens, the app does this" is the correct conceptual model. • High-level components. The app inventor team has built a great library with simplicity the main goal. • Only some blocks plug-in. You can't do things that don't make sense. • Concreteness. Less abstract than many languages. David Wolber, Computer Science

Apps students have built • • • Quizzes, surveys, study guides USF restaurant guides Droid Where’s my car? Broadcast Hub Next Muni Games David Wolber, Computer Science

What you can build • Educational apps – Including video, images, text-to-speech • • • Location-aware apps Games NXT Robot Controllers Web-enabled apps Personal apps David Wolber, Computer Science

Demo: Quiz App • • Lists for questions, answers Index to walk through questions Next button Checking the answer David Wolber, Computer Science

Try It! • Go to: appinventor. googlelabs. com • Register and get started – Download software – Try Hello. Purr app and other tutorials – Use phone or emulator • Help-- Wolber’s sites: – appinventor. org – appinventorapi. com (advanced) • Take CS 107 (and send students!) David Wolber, Computer Science

David Wolber, Computer Science

David Wolber, Computer Science