APP INVENTOR AS A RECRUITING AND

RETENTION TOOL

Tim Krause, PhDUniversity of Wisconsin – Stevens Point

Overview App Inventor Course Design

First Offering – Fall 2010

Second Offering – Spring 2011

Next Steps & Issues

Additional Resources

Course Design

2010/2011 Spring 2012

CIS102

CIS499

Ind. study I

Ind. study II

Personal Researc

h

CIS 102

Spring 2010

Course Design Spring 2010:

Two independent studies:

○ iOS○ Android

Personal research and development

Course Design: Resources Internal College grant (with D. Gibbs):

2 Android Dev II Phones ($800)1 Apple iPad ($499)

Course Design - Findings iOS:

Limited access to hardwareExpense of integrated developer programObjective C learning curve

Android: Access to hardware in department*Affordable/optional developer programEase of development: App Inventor

Course Design: 2010 - 2011 CIS 102 (1 credit) – Pilot

3 First-Year 3 Sophomore 2 Junior

CIS 499 (2-3 credit) – Mentoring and course design4 Senior

App I: The Brain Reference

App I: The Brain Reference

App II: MineMaze

App II: MineMaze

Course Design: FormatWK Activity2 Setup development environment, Hello Purr Application3 Basic Tutorial I (PaintPot) 4 Basic Tutorial II (MoleMash OR PicCall)5 Advanced Tutorial I (student choice)6 Advanced Tutorial II (student choice)7 Semester Project Proposals8 Semester Project Design/Wireframe/Prototype9 Setup Eclipse development environment (advanced)10 Status reports11 Overview of iOS development12 Status reports13 Overview of other framework development (HTML5/CSS3)14 Status reports15 Informal presentation to class16 Formal presentation to faculty and student body

FindingsApp Inventor for Android

Increased Collaboration

Increased Collaboration JRs and SRs modeled problem-solving

and other skills: mentoring

Example: App Inventor was buggy and difficult to install

Solution: students created a list of helpful links and a how-to guide for installation

Increased Collaboration That difficult install?

Students telling students to read instructions was powerful!

Increased Engagement Students voluntarily chose to abandon App

Inventor (spring 2011) in favor of custom development in Eclipse

Students voluntarily chose to explore other mobile development frameworks and presented to class: HTML, CSS, JSAppcceleratorPhoneGap

Increased Engagement Fall internships locally (2)

Independently Developed Apps

Independently Developed Apps

Independently Developed Apps

Next Steps iOS training for faculty (summer 2011)

Refine CIS 102 and offer as a course for non-majors (spring 2012)

Issues: App Inventor Support

Issues: App Inventor Support

Issues Local employer demand:

Dozens of positionsTransitioning development from desktop

development to mobileFocus on iOS devices: iPad, iPhone

Issues Hardware and operating system:

Macintosh (Intel-based): OSX 10.5, 10.6Windows: Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7GNU/Linux: Ubuntu 8+, Debian 5+

Java 6 (1.6)

Had to rely on students' hardware

Issues Fragmented development options

HTML5 Examples:

AppMobi: http://www.appmobi.com/

Adobe Edge: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/edge/

Jo:http://joapp.com/

Issues: Coolness Factor For me, in the classroom:

1995 - HTML2005 - Second Life2010 - Mobile

Resources(student recommended)

Installing Eclipse:Eclipsehttp://www.eclipse.org/downloads/packages/eclipse-classic-362/heliossr2Android SDKhttp://developer.android.com/sdk/index.htmlJava JREhttp://java.com/en/download/index.jspJava JDKhttp://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk-6u25-download-346242.html

Resources(student recommended)1. Install the JRE2. Install JDK3. Install Android SDK4. Run Eclipse as Administrator5. Install Google ADT through Eclipse6. Install Android SDK and AVD Manager

through Eclipse

Resources (student recommended) Tutorials:

Hello World with App Inventorhttp://developer.android.com/resources/tutorials/hello-world.html

How to install Android SDK with Eclipsehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIL1UouA4dE

Troubleshooting ADThttp://wood1978.dyndns.org/~wood/wordpress/?p=275