Christopher Michaud Marist School

Atlanta, Georgia

Computational Thinking Great ‘buzzword’! Critical Thinking with Digital Technology Systems Flow Thinking What educational activities and projects promote

Computational Thinking? How does Computational Thinking benefit individual

and society?

Why Mobile Apps and Assistive Technology? Computing System for today’s users Portable Outreach to connect with others through medicine

and Human Ability Amplification Computing for self expression versus computing for

service

Assistive Technology Projects Teachers

Create Custom experiences based on student needs

Relevant media inside Applications

Innovate new means in applying mobile technology to assist students

Students Create projects that

benefit community Projects outside of

‘research’ or ‘personal expression’

Inspire interest in computing with students who might not be interested in creating games / animations

Why Assistive Technology? Social Responsibility Growing Field Augmented Communication Device Apply Image and Sound Editing with a purpose other

than self expression. Designing a tool to equip other people. Apply to a diverse group of students

Tools for Creating Mobile Applications HTML5 Templates: Transferable but not flexible GameSalad / Stencylworks: Apple Device Only – focus

on animated games Swift – New Programming system for Apple Xcode – Apple iOS programming environment Java / Eclipse – Android programming environment App Inventor: Android block based development

environment.

App Inventor Created by Google Maintained by MIT Media Lab Block Based Programming Environment Web based Programming http://appinventor.mit.edu/ http://ai2.appinventor.mit.edu/

In App Inventor: The Control and The View are set with the web based

interface (http://beta.appinventor.mit.edu)

The Model is programmed with the Blocks Editor (A java applet downloaded when needed during session)

User Interface Design: In the Browser

Objects Screen Layout Tree and Names Properties

Blocks View: Program App

Programming Blocks in App Inventor

Event – Calls Code when occurs: (Click, Timer, Drag . . .) Key word is “When”

Value – Plugs into a socket and passes a variable, list, or object to another block.

Setter – Puts a Value into an object. Usually has a socket. Key word is “Set”

Void Action – Performs an Action but does not return a Value. Usually has sockets. Key word is “call”

Apps for Today

Image to Speech App ASL Alphabet App Develop additional ideas for Applications

Introduction App: Image Talker Similar to Dynovox type devices Handle Images in App Inventor Buttons and Click Events TextToSpeech Object

Sign Language Alphabet App Computational Objectives

Search characters of Strings (Text) Store image and text resources in parallel arrays Index (position) in array Display images in application Converting text to sound with API tool

Social Objectives Use computing to reach out and serve others Create tools to empower and connect

Control-Model-View Control

User Input Sensor Input

• Model – The

programming that encodes the logic and flow of application.

• View – The output to

the screen

Algorithm Isolate Letter from text Search letter list for index of letter Use letter index in image list to retrieve and display

image.

1 a

2 b

3 c

4 d

1 a.gif

2 b.gif

3 c.gif

4 d.gif

cab

Algorithm

1 a

2 b

3 c

4 d

1 a.gif

2 b.gif

3 c.gif

4 d.gif

cab

Letter list Image list

ImageView Android Object

Text Input Android Object