AppInventor Workshop

Karen Lang will run a free workshop on AppInventor in Christchurch during the upcoming school holidays on Monday Oct 5 (9am to 2pm) and Tuesday Oct 6 (9:30am to 4pm). It should be able to operate at Covid Alert Level 2 or 1, although there may be a limit on places if we're still at Alert Level 2, and we'll give priority to those who register early. This session is primarily aimed at those who are local to Christchurch, but if you are able to get to Christchurch for the days then you are welcome to attend.

Ideally you should bring your own laptop for the event, but we have a few computers available if that's not possible for some people.

The workshop runs for Monday and Tuesday, but if you can't stay for both days, it will be structures so that you get some value from attending on Monday only.

The workshop will be run by Karen Lang from MIT, Boston. Any administrative questions about the workshop can be directed to Kath Doherty (kath.doherty@canterbury.ac.nz)

The workshop will be held in the Erskine Building (Science Road), room 235. The event isn't catered, but there is a cafe at the entrance to the building. Note that this is during university term time, so allow time to find parking, or even better, come by bus or bike!

MIT App Inventor (http://appinventor.mit.edu/) is a popular educational tool for learning how to code, with more than 10 million users, worldwide. It is a visual 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 middle school or intermediate level. This programme is based on the Coolthink (https://www.coolthink.hk/en/) 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 mobile device to use in the workshop. If you do not have an Android device, there is an emulator that runs on the laptop. Please go to https://appinventor.mit.edu/explore/ai2/setup to set up your laptop and device prior to the workshop. If you have an iOS device, note that in your registration, and you will be sent a link to install software on your iPhone or iPad prior to the workshop.

Monday 5 October, 2020

Tuesday 6 October, 2020