App Inventor Training for the Kentucky Academy of Technology Education

In response to interest in App Inventor from Kentucky’s Students Technology Leadership Program, the Kentucky Academy of Technology Education (KATE) hosted two, two day, App Inventor trainings. To demonstrate a range of App Inventor’s features in a manner inclusive to teachers of a variety of subjects and grade levels, I selected two topics that arise in all classrooms: classroom management and vocabulary building.

On day one a slight tweak to the Hello Purr app, commonly used as an introduction to App Inventor, enabled educators to build a basic classroom management application within an hour. From there participants were introduced to several common CS concepts and App Inventor features to enhance their classroom management applications.

The following day educators built an application that helps students keep track of new vocabulary words and definitions. Participants learned how to store and retrieve data with a TinyDB component, as well as how an activity starter can link an app directly to a website, such as an online dictionary.

Participants left the conference with at least three functional apps for their Android phones. Perhaps more importantly, they returned to their sites with ideas on how to utilize App Inventor to engage students and assist teachers.