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App inventor for android: report from a summer camp

Published: 29 February 2012 Publication History

Abstract

Google's App Inventor for Android (AIA) is the newest visual "blocks" programming language designed to introduce students to programming through creation of mobile applications (apps). AIA opens up the world of mobile apps to novice programmers. Success stories of using AIA to introduce college students to programming exist. We used AIA in computing summer camps for high school students that we offer at our university. This paper is an experience report about using AIA in our camps. We provide a detailed description of designing our camps with AIA including the process of selecting and setting-up an Android device and instructional materials that we developed and made available to everyone. We evaluated our camps through surveys to determine the effects on the students. We found that there was mostly a slight increase in the favorable disposition towards computing. We also share our successes with using AIA and what still needs improvement for wider use.

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Cited By

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  • (2023)A Summer Camp Experience to Engage Middle School Learners in AI through Conversational App DevelopmentProceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3545945.3569864(813-819)Online publication date: 2-Mar-2023
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  • (2022)Testing the efficacy of a near-peer mentoring model for recruiting youth into computer scienceMentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning10.1080/13611267.2022.205710130:2(184-201)Online publication date: 25-Mar-2022
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cover image ACM Conferences
SIGCSE '12: Proceedings of the 43rd ACM technical symposium on Computer Science Education
February 2012
734 pages
ISBN:9781450310987
DOI:10.1145/2157136
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Publication History

Published: 29 February 2012

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Author Tags

  1. android
  2. app inventor
  3. outreach
  4. summer camp

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SIGCSE '12
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SIGCSE '12: The 43rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
February 29 - March 3, 2012
North Carolina, Raleigh, USA

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SIGCSE '12 Paper Acceptance Rate 100 of 289 submissions, 35%;
Overall Acceptance Rate 1,595 of 4,542 submissions, 35%

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Cited By

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  • (2023)A Summer Camp Experience to Engage Middle School Learners in AI through Conversational App DevelopmentProceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3545945.3569864(813-819)Online publication date: 2-Mar-2023
  • (2022)Recruiting K-12 youth into computer scienceACM Inroads10.1145/352491613:2(22-29)Online publication date: 17-May-2022
  • (2022)Testing the efficacy of a near-peer mentoring model for recruiting youth into computer scienceMentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning10.1080/13611267.2022.205710130:2(184-201)Online publication date: 25-Mar-2022
  • (2020)Making AppsACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/342571020:4(1-23)Online publication date: 12-Nov-2020
  • (2020)SIGITE and SIGCSE SymposiumsProceedings of the 21st Annual Conference on Information Technology Education10.1145/3368308.3415400(132-137)Online publication date: 7-Oct-2020
  • (2019)The Appropriateness of Scratch and App Inventor as Educational Environments for Teaching Introductory Programming in Primary and Secondary EducationEarly Childhood Development10.4018/978-1-5225-7507-8.ch039(797-819)Online publication date: 2019
  • (2019)Öğretmenlerin Eğitsel Mobil Uygulama Geliştirme Aracı Olarak Mit App Inventor’ı KabulüKastamonu Eğitim Dergisi10.24106/kefdergi.330027:6(2459-2466)Online publication date: 15-Nov-2019
  • (2019)Fifteen Years of Introductory Programming in SchoolsProceedings of the 19th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research10.1145/3364510.3364513(1-9)Online publication date: 21-Nov-2019
  • (2019)Introduction to the Special SectionACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/335413619:4(1-6)Online publication date: 10-Oct-2019
  • (2019)A Systematic Investigation of Replications in Computing Education ResearchACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/334532819:4(1-18)Online publication date: 17-Aug-2019
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