The Educational App Development Toolkit for Teachers and Learners is designed to introduce the basic and some intermediate concepts of Android app development on the App Inventor (AI2) platform. It provides hands-on activities and tutorials to use the Designer and Blocks Editor components of App Inventor to create apps that can be readily downloaded and used on any Android smartphone or tablet. Furthermore, the hands-on sessions will guide you on how to use features such as text-to-speech, accelerometer, speech recognition, drawing, video, games and music playback. The Toolkit also provides guidelines on how to package and distribute your app. For teachers a training plan is also provided that can be used to provide training to students in an instructor-led environment.
Type of Material:
Open Textbook
Recommended Uses:
The materials from this toolkit can be used in-class or as homework.
Technical Requirements:
PDF reader
Identify Major Learning Goals:
The main goal of this material is to introduce basic and intermediary level concepts of Android development using App Inventor (AI2). This includes a description of Android and AI2, but also a number of resources that can be used by teachers and learners, for example activities and tutorials.
Target Student Population:
This toolkit is designed to be used by both teachers (trainers) and students (trainees) that wish to learn how to develop Android apps visually.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:
The material is designed for learners who have little or no prior experience in software programming.
Content Quality
Rating:
Strengths:
+ The activities are guided in good detail, with some visual aids.
+ The activities' level allows inexperienced learners to start gradually.
+ Packaging and publishing are also covered, not just App development.
+ Good variability of activities.
Concerns:
- The level of detail when introducing an activity/tutorial varies.
- There could be more information about how to setup the tutorials and guide learners through them.
Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool
Rating:
Strengths:
+ Good number of resources that can be used in-class or as homework.
+ Good coverage of Android aspects through the activities and tutorials.
+ The step-by-step organisation of the activities helps learners understand all the details.
+ The activities include access to necessary resources.
Concerns:
- Perhaps there could be an organisation of activities/tutorials by type.
- Perhaps there could be further explanations linking the several resources in this material.
Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty
Rating:
Strengths:
+ The activities have very detailed information.
+ Both activities and tutorials include an initial table summarising important items (e.g. resources, expected outcomes).
+ The processes for packaging and publishing Apps are described in detail.
+ The walkthroughs for the activities are thorough and include visual aids.
Concerns:
- There could be more explanations on how to address the tutorials (both from a teacher and a learner perspective).
- Perhaps there could be a more guiding flow connecting several of the resources.
Creative Commons:
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