ISEDJ

Abstract: App Inventor has been used successfully to teach introduction to programming course for CS\IS\IT and Non-CS majors. Now, researchers are looking on how to include the tool in the curriculum of more advanced computing courses. This paper presents some Issues, Challenges and Opportunities observed while teaching courses on Mobile Application Development with App Inventor. In particular, this paper discusses the following topics that instructors should take into consideration when designing their courses: Pre-Requisite for the course, Visual vs. Textual Programming, Planning and Designing Apps, the use of Web Services, students new to Event-driven programming, Lists, the use of database and SQL, designing User Interfaces, discussing Data communications, and the Use versus the Creation of objects. The paper shows that App Inventor has great potential to be used for teaching more advanced computing concepts. For some of the topics, students may be required to have more than just basic programming skills.

Keywords: App Inventor, Mobile applications, Non-Beginners, Programmers

Download this article: ISEDJ - V12 N4 Page 56.pdf

Recommended Citation: Soares, A. (2014). Reflections on Teaching App Inventor for Non-Beginner Programmers: Issues, Challenges and Opportunities . Information Systems Education Journal, 12(4) pp 56-65. http://isedj.org/2014-12/ ISSN: 1545-679X. (A preliminary version appears in The Proceedings of ISECON 2013)