2012-09-19 Android App Inventor

A joint Chicago Chapter ACM / Loyola University Computer Science Department meeting

Loyola University Water Tower Campus (Chicago/Michigan Area)

Corboy Law Center (CLC) Room 0211

25 E. Pearson, Chicago IL 60611

Campus map

Admission: Free Reservations

This hands-on workshop will show you how you can easily program your own Android Apps. We will explore a much simpler mechanism for creating moderately complex mobile phone Apps than has previously been seen in the ACM/Loyola forum. Using MIT's App Inventor environment, creation of Android Apps has become straightforward even for people with no prior programming experience.

Android phones have reached over 2/3 market share among smart phones in the second quarter of 2012 according to IDC. With Android and App Inventor both being open source projects (principally developed by Google), they provide tremendous opportunity for democratization of App development.

If you bring your laptop, you can participate and follow along with the presentation. All you will need is a Google account and a Windows, Macintosh, or GNU/Linux computer with a moderately recent operating system and browser. Follow the directions at http://beta.appinventor.mit.edu/learn/setup to set up your computer, including an emulator. Do it ahead of time, or come early during the social hour to get help. You will also find optional steps for setting up an actual Android phone; you'll be able to download Apps as long as you have a USB cable or have downloaded a scanner for QR-codes (e.g., ZXing) from Google Play (incorporating the former Android Market).

About the Speakers:  As computer science faculty members at Loyola University Chicago, Drs. Greenberg and Honig have both taught non-majors to program Android Apps using App Inventor. Dr. Greenberg has also engaged in many other outreach efforts to broaden participation in computing, including NSF-supported work with Chicago Public Schools. He received the Ph.D. in computer science from MIT. Dr. Honig held senior industry positions leading R&D organizations in Motorola, U S WEST, GTE Corporation, and Bell Laboratories before joining academia. His academic interests are bringing "real-world" computing to the classroom, large scale software engineering, and mobile collaboration applications. As part of this work, he has received grants from NSF, DARPA, HP, Google, and local government organizations. Dr. Honig received the Ph.D. in computer science from Northwestern University.