Today, Google announced App Inventor, a mobile application creator for the Android platform.
This past school year, I attended a CocoaTouch class on building apps for iPhone – and dropped out early, in part, because it was way over my head. But having taught educators how to use Scratch and Alice both, this new development platform from Google which uses the block metaphor from MIT’s Lifelong Kindergarten group looks interesting. Real interesting.
You might ask what this means for kids–is it simply a tutorial for programming? I’m not sure the programming aspect is the real key here, but instead, it’s the fact that kids can create programs they can really use. There’s a difference here: Alice and Scratch for the most part run in their respective environments. Scratch, especially (strong in my opinion of the two development environments) is geared towards sharing your creations online with other peers. But what’s next when you’re ready to graduate from Scratch?
Alice is an obvious choice – but while Alice has a richer programming heritage behind it, the social aspect is missing which makes Scratch infectious for young learners. But imagine when a class all has an Android phone (or device) in their pocket… and they can run those apps!
Our own Virginia DOE has put their weight behind Apple and app development for iOS with two recent contests. With this Google tool, and a few months of maturity behind the platform, I think educators will finally have a chance to really give such a challenge a go. I don’t personally own an Android phone, so I take this all with a biased look… my iPhone preference aside, I think this is big news.
If kids can create real apps that they can run on their own (real) phones, it’s gonna be huge. Even if they are simple apps like the one demonstrated in the video – I can’t wait to see where this is going. I’ve already signed up to be a beta tester and await to try it out myself. For a non-programmer (or one that hasn’t programmed since the 1980s) CocoaTouch was a nightmare. Block-based programming takes the syntax element away and lets app development flourish.
August 18th, 2010 at 3:07 am
There was already an app for iPhone, but apple locked it out.
http://computinged.wordpress.com/2010/04/15/apple-removes-scratch-from-ipadiphoneitouch/
January 5th, 2011 at 2:33 pm
I actually saw a prototype of Scratch running on an Android device at the Scratch conference this summer (where I also gave an impromptu talk on what to teach after scratch)
It was not an ‘official’ scratch port, but it worked almost exactly like traditional Scratch on the Android. I’m trying now to find the person who wrote that, as I’m not seeing it available yet.
If you’re expecting Android Inventor to be just like Scratch, I think you’ll be disappointed. It is NOT as simple as scratch, because it is not intended for the same market. Mobile programming is complicated. App Inventor makes it easier, but it is still complex.
I believe the next step after Scratch would be to take students to a ‘real yet easy’ programming environment. Personally I like Python as the next step, because it’s easy, but offers substantial capabilities not available in Scratch (access to web data, saving and loading files, and so on..)
Stop by my site or drop me an email if you want more information on this.
January 5th, 2011 at 7:43 pm
I understand the App Inventor is different… and I imagine it will only support a certain class of apps… but, it is encouraging that this block-based language that Scratch (among Squeak and others) has helped to promote has gotten legs outside the world of education.