Teaching App Inventor in Hong Kong: Map Component

This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Tony Lam

The CoolThink@JC Project is created and funded by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, and co-created by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The Education University of Hong Kong, and City University of Hong Kong. The Programme supports 32 primary schools in Hong Kong to provide either 9-hour or 14-hour computational thinking education lessons per school year over three years’ time. The support includes teacher training, learning materials and teaching assistants.

On December 14, 2017, I was very honoured to have Professor Hal Abelson and Josh Sheldon visiting my coding lesson. In that lesson, I taught the newest Map components. Students learned to use the Map component in App Inventor to create a tour guide app that shows tourists sites in their community. Visitors can use the app to locate and learn about sites in the area.

Students also used the TinyDB component to store data persistently in an app. Students continued to develop their use of Computational Thinking Concepts such as conditionals (showcasing different information according to the location chosen), lists (containing the information of tourist sites), and operators in creating this app.

Most importantly, the students loved the new Map component very much and they enjoyed making the tour guide app!