This post is designed to provide some context around how/why we decided to build this app. The more technical details of the code and how we published it will come in a future post.

My students and I recently completed and published an Android app, and here’s how we did it.

First, the genesis for this goes back to a question I asked some time ago, regarding what I should teach kids. I then asked for help designing the course.

I developed some thoughts in response and wondered how the course would go. Since I’m such a Google fanatic, I was aware of the App Inventor software Google provides for free. I set it up on three computers and left it prepared if the chance arose to try it out.

When the first class of “media tech” came to me we began chatting about what they wanted to learn. A few kids said the magic words, “we want to learn about developing apps for phones”. Music to my ears. I set them down on the three computers, showed them how to find the tutorials and they went to work.

The first app kids developed was called Meatball Destruction. The goal was for a meatball to destroy different objects, with the difficulty increasing. Truth be told, the game didn’t get too far. It was barely playable by the end of our nine weeks (block schedule, so I see these kids roughly 22 times) course.

So when the new block of kids came in, I decided that the kids needed to have a useful purpose behind the app in order to help sustain interest when the difficulties arose. So the kids decided to make an app about our school for parents and students.

Most of the time, they worked on their own, and sometimes they came to ask questions. Truth be told, they knew more than I did, and it was ok. We spent time Googling answers together and sometimes I had to ask questions in a forum. Thankfully the community was supportive and helpful.

If you have an Android phone, we’d love it if you would download it and rate it!