Two Edge Hill University education academics are helping both teachers and students develop their skills in smartphone app building by publishing an innovative new book.
Hello App Inventor! by Paula Beer, a lecturer in computing and IT, and Carl Simmons, computing subject coordinator, has just been released by the US-based publishers Manning.
Both lecturers, who also taught in secondary schools, developed the book to help introduce young readers to the world of Android based mobile programming, following a request from teachers to provide classroom resources. Featuring more than 30 invent-it-yourself projects, their book starts with the building blocks needed to create practice apps. Then students can learn the skills to bring their own app ideas to life using the App Inventor programming language which is developed and maintained by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Using Hello App Inventor!, young programmers can create animated characters, games, experiments, magic tricks, and even a “zombie alarm clock”, as well as learning to use advanced phone features.
The book aims to engage people with apps and coding, after teachers spoke about how they felt that pupils would love the opportunity to create their own apps in the classroom. The programming language, which works in a similar way to Scratch, can also be used in GCSE coursework projects.
Paula Beer says: “After talking to teachers and conducting our own research, Carl and I found that there were not many App Inventor resources out there for teachers and pupils to use in schools. The idea for the book came about as we both felt this needed to be addressed.”
Paula has also delivered training to fellow school educators in the use of App Inventor. Her areas of research interest include the use of play and collaboration in the teaching of computer programming.
Computing subject coordinator Carl Simmons adds: “We worked with focus groups of young people who came up with app ideas they would like to see, some of which have made it into the final book. The ‘homework excuse generator’ and anything with added zombies were particular favourites!”
Carl has worked at Edge Hill University for over eight years and has broad and varied experience in the education sector working across secondary schools, further and higher education over the last two decades. In these roles and through his e-learning research, Carl has developed expertise in computing, teaching and learning practices, formative assessment practices and course development. His most recent research has explored screen-casting as a tool for formative assessment and augmented reality in education.
Carl is also co-author of Teaching ICT (2009) with Clair Hawkins, a senior lecturer and course leader at Edge Hill University. This is a common text used in many computing teacher training courses and a second edition, Teaching Computing, is due for publication in 2015.
Find how more about how to train to become a computing teacher at Edge Hill University here.
