Making Mobile Apps with MIT App Inventor

Karen Lang, from MIT app inventor is coming to Auckland to run a workshop in using MIT app inventor in your classrooms. See her bio below. She will also be running a workshop for South Island based teachers at University of Canterbury (https://www.dthm4kaiako.ac.nz/events)

MIT App Inventor is a popular educational tool for learning how to code, with more than 10 million users, worldwide. It is a blocks-based programming language with a development environment that runs in a browser, to design and build mobile apps. 

MIT App Inventor has recently developed a computational teaching programme, targeted toward intermediate or year 9/10. This programme is based on the Coolthink programme, a 3 year programme currently being piloted to 32 schools in Hong Kong. The App Inventor teaching programme is intended to be delivered in a single year, and can be modified to work as a 6 week unit, 12 week unit, or a semester long course. There are approximately 50 hours of content.

This workshop will introduce teachers to the programme, its computational thinking framework, and some of the units. The workshop is hands-on, so teachers should come away with the experience and confidence to teach some or all of the units in their schools. Learn to build a piano app, a tilting maze game, and a map-based tour guide app!

We will also share resources that have been designed for use with AppInventor in Aotearoa, that match the new and revised DT curriculum material.

Note: Participants should come to the workshop with a laptop and an Android or iOS (iPhone or iPad) mobile device to use in the workshop. If you do not have a suitable device, there is an emulator that runs on the laptop. Please go here to set up your laptop and device prior to the workshop.

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Karen Lang works as the Education and Business Development Manager for MIT App Inventor. In that role, Karen advocates for the use of App Inventor as a tool to enable people, young and old, to become active creators of technology. Prior to joining the App Inventor team in 2015, Karen spent much of the past twenty years as an educator, focused on Computer Science education. Karen has taught in the US and around the world – at high schools in New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and in England. She also acted as technology coordinator at American international schools in Venezuela and Hungary. She taught Computer Science for eleven years at the Massachusetts Academy of Math and Science in Worcester, MA, USA where her focus always was to expose students to the possibilities of becoming technological innovators. As an educator, Karen developed curricula, trained teachers, and presented at various conferences on Computer Science education. Karen also served as the 9-12 Representative for the U.S. Computer Science Teachers Association Board of Directors for five years, where she was able to contribute and advocate for Computer Science education on a national level. Prior to her educational career, Karen spent ten years as a software engineer, where her passion for technology as a means of innovation and creativity grew. 

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Tea and coffee provided. Bring your own lunch as it's not sponsored/funded. 

Background experience in coding: None required 

**This initiative is targeted to encourage women in tech, therefore we ask you to bring one female student with you who can be your helper to teach this content in the future.

Registration form: https://forms.gle/3hw4mid21ZpLwrhf9

If you decide you cannot make it, please email me (Leanne.bint@aut.ac.nz) so your space can be given to someone else.

Looking forward to seeing you in our workshop.

Wednesday 1 April, 2020