Team Blog
A New User Interface for MIT App Inventor
Aug 7, 2024 susan's Blog
We have a new (additional) User Interface for MIT App Inventor
Blockly Summit 2024 Recap
Jun 10, 2024 evan's Blog
Last week I went to Mountain View, CA to visit our friends on the Google Blockly team and to speak about the work we have been doing at App Inventor on generative AI, both in how block environments can invoke generative AI models as well as using generative AI models to code with blocks. Click the link to learn more about the event.
MIT App Inventor Inspires Girls with AI and Data Science at Technovation Challenge Workshop
Apr 9, 2024 selim's Blog
On March 16, 2024, after a prolonged hiatus due to the pandemic, the MIT App Inventor team had the delightful opportunity to host 24 girls participating in the Technovation Challenge 2024.
Celebrating 100 Million Projects
Mar 14, 2024 evan's Blog
In February 2024, the MIT App Inventor server reached the milestone of hosting 100,000,000 projects! 🎉🎉 This milestone is a testament to the far-reaching impact of the platform, which has been translated into 20 different languages and is used in over 200 countries and regions around the world. Click 'More' to learn about App Inventor's reach.
Boston Public School Students Consider AI and Data Science
Mar 6, 2024 robert's Blog
Working on thorny, real-world problems such as climate change requires data to better understand them. High schoolers from Boston Public Schools explored climate data using AI and data science during a three-day workshop at MIT’s Stata Center.
App Inventor at FOSDEM 2024
Feb 13, 2024 evan's Blog
I recently had the pleasure of attending FOSDEM 2024 in Brussels, Belgium last week. FOSDEM is a gathering of people contributing to free and open source software hosted at Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). While primaily focused on Europe it draws people from around the world. This year, Peter Mathijssen, an App Inventor Power User, and Bart Mathijssen, a contributor to App Inventor on GitHub, helped organize two tracks: FOSS Education Software Devroom and FOSDEM Junior.
MIT App Inventor at Maine State Prison
Jan 1, 2024 selim's Blog
Mind, Hand, and Heart: MIT at Its Very Best.
During Spring 2023, App Inventor team offered the Introduction of Mobile Computing and Artificial Intelligence course at Maine State Prison. The project was supported by a grant from the MIT Office of Experiential Learning and a cohort of 18 residents earned their certificates of completion.
2023 Development Year in Review
Dec 20, 2023 evan's Blog
Hello everyone,
As we close out the year 2023, I would like to take a moment to celebrate the efforts of everyone in the App Inventor development community.
In this past year, we have open sourced our iOS implementation and made it available for the world. We also performed significant...
The App Inventor Summer Camp I Wished I Had as a Child
Aug 22, 2023 angie's Blog
The summer camp at St. Paul's Co-educational College in Hong Kong was all about coding, innovation, sustainability and a dash of friendly competition. The theme was to promote and improve double-decker trams, the greenest public transport in Hong Kong.
An Overview of the App Inventor Sources -- Components
Apr 10, 2023 evan's Blog
Read about how the App Inventor sources are structured in this series of blog posts. This week we discuss the App Inventor components module.
An Overview of the App Inventor Sources
Apr 3, 2023 evan's Blog
This post is the first in a series of articles on the layout and structuring of the App Inventor sources, which are available on GitHub under the Apache Software License 2.0. Each week an article will cover a different part of the system.
The App Inventor sources are broken...
Open Sourcing of MIT App Inventor for iOS
Mar 27, 2023 evan's Blog
The App Inventor development team announces that the MIT App Inventor for iOS companion app is now open source and available on GitHub.
MIT App Inventor at Valencia!
Mar 21, 2023 angie's Blog
Angie Zhou went to sunny Valencia to present App Inventor’s image classification work to researchers and educators at the International Technology, Education, and Development Conference (INTED)
MIT App Inventor Impact
Feb 27, 2023 hal's Blog
MIT App Inventor Impact 2019-2022
Since its release in 2012, MIT App Inventor led by Prof. Hal Abelson has emerged as one of MIT's most widely used contributions to K-12 educational technology. It is part of the MIT-wide initiative Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education (RAISE).
HTTPS Support for App Inventor
Nov 16, 2022 evan's Blog
HTTPS Support for App Inventor
In the coming weeks, we will be rolling out HTTPS support for MIT App Inventor. This is an important update to improve the security of the many app inventors around the world, but it requires that people are running the latest software.
How will...
2022 Appathon for Good Inspires New Technologies
Oct 11, 2022 robert's Blog
Appathon 2022 winner Cindy Xiao and other winners submitted apps that varied widely in the ingenious ways they solved real-world problems — from accessing public databases in real time to using artificial intelligence to count items captured by a camera phone.
MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node Hosts Blended Learning Training Course on App Inventor
Sep 14, 2022 angie's Blog
MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node is hosting a series of teacher-training courses on App Inventor and computational thinking, training 200 teachers in Hong Kong.
Companion Version 2.64 in Beta Test
Jul 12, 2022 jeff's Blog
Companion version 2.64 is now in Beta Test. It implements a new kind of "Legacy Connection."
Release nb189 Coming Soon
May 28, 2022 jeff's Blog
This coming week we are planning on releasing a new version of MIT App Inventor, version nb189. This is a “component” release which will include a new MIT AI2 Companion, version 2.63.
Why is There No https in MIT App Inventor
Mar 25, 2022 jeff's Blog
People are asking "Why is MIT App Inventor insecure?" What they are typically referring to is the fact that the server at ai2.appinventor.mit.edu does not support the https (secure http) protocol.
App Inventor Collaborator CoolThink@JC Wins International Recognition Including Silver and Bronze Awards at the "Oscars" of Education
Mar 24, 2022 angie's Blog
Congratulations to CoolThink@JC project, for winning international recognition again. The project received the Silver and Bronze awards at the QS Reimagine Education Awards and Education Alliance Finland certification.
Introducing Aptly that Turns Ideas into Working Apps
Mar 21, 2022 hal's Blog
Speak Your Mind: Introducing Aptly, the Software Platform that Turns Ideas into Working Apps
What if you could create apps simply by describing what you want in everyday language? How might you use that power to improve life for your family, your community, the world? What would you build?
Announcing Become An App Inventor
Mar 4, 2022 hal's Blog
The MIT App Inventor team is delighted to announce the publication of Become an App Inventor: The Official Guide from MIT App Inventor, by Karen Lang and Selim Tezel.
(Release date February 8, 2022)
Computer Room Shutdown at MIT
Jan 20, 2022 jeff's Blog
A key computer room at MIT will be shutdown 01/22/2022 - 01/24/2022. Critical services should stay up, but some services will be unavailable.
App Inventor Collaborator CoolThink@JC Awarded ISTE Seal of Alignment
Oct 9, 2021 angie's Blog
MIT App Inventor collaborator CoolThink@JC, a Computational Thinking Education Programme targetting primary school students, receives the ISTE Seal of Alignment!
Chromium 94 Issues
Sep 28, 2021 evan's Blog
Chromium 94, the core browser functionality for Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge, among others, recently introduced a new feature to protect local network devices from malicious websites. This change unfortunately affects many App Inventor users. If you use Chrome or Edge and you live test your App Inventor project using...
Appathon 2021 Winners Take Aim at Mental Health, Traffic, Zombies, and More
Aug 29, 2021 robert's Blog
Over a thousand coders built phone and tablet apps to fix problems in their lives and communities. Submissions reflected all the problems and anxieties of 2021, and a few are ready to be adopted right away to address these problems.
Robert Parks to join MIT App Inventor
Jun 3, 2021 hal's Blog
Please accompany me in welcoming Robert Parks to the MIT App Inventor education team.
Robert is a curriculum developer, author, designer and teacher with keen understanding of student empowerment in STEM. His 2005 publication Makers was the first book on the maker movement. He’s served as senior editor for Wired...
2021 CoolThink Teacher Commendation Day
May 28, 2021 angie's Blog
The CoolThink@JC computational thinking education initiative on May 26 hosted a commendation ceremony recognizing the hard work and contribution from 10 schools and 11 teachers in Hong Kong.
Welcome Anqi Zhou to MIT App Inventor!
Apr 15, 2021 hal's Blog
On behalf of MIT App Inventor, I’m absolutely delighted to welcome Anqi (Angie) Zhou as the newest member of the MIT team. Angie comes to MIT as founder and CEO of Dreams Come True in Shenzhen, where she developed online coding courses for kids. She also has previous curriculum development,...
MIT App Inventor for iOS on the App Store
Mar 4, 2021 evan's Blog
It is with great pleasure that the App Inventor team announces that the MIT App Inventor companion app for iOS is now generally available on the Apple App Store for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and Mac. At over 66,000 lines of code, this has been a tremendous undertaking by the team.
2020 Year in Review - App Inventor Development
Jan 12, 2021 evan's Blog
This year we had a total of 199 commits to the App Inventor open source repository, which included 88 commits from 27 contributors external to MIT. We performed thirteen releases this year including seven companion updates. This is two more contributors than last year. Welcome to everyone new this year...
A Look at Component Usage in MIT App Inventor
Dec 19, 2020 evan's Blog
We recently analyzed App Inventor projects present in the system as of September 2019. The snapshot we used contained 42,734,420 projects (as of 2020-11-03, we now have over 54 million projects in App Inventor). This analysis focused on components to help us better understand where most effort is put into...
Changes in the new MIT App Inventor Gallery
Nov 13, 2020 jeff's Blog
The new MIT App Inventor Gallery will be release this weekend (11/14/2020-11/15/2020). Here is a brief introduction to the changes in this version of the Gallery.
The New Gallery Goes Live This Weekend
Nov 9, 2020 jeff's Blog
The New MIT App Inventor Gallery will go live this coming weekend.
During the weekend there will be a brief period where the Gallery will be unavailable while its projects are moved to the new Gallery.
A New Gallery is coming to MIT App Inventor
Oct 19, 2020 jeff's Blog
We are planning on deploying a new MIT App Inventor Gallery in the few next weeks. This new version will have a different look and feel from the current gallery, but will offer enhanced functionality.
MIT App Inventor Partners with Black Girls Code to Encourage Young Girls to Change the World in a Hackathon
Aug 20, 2020 karen's Blog
File Path Updates Starting with Android 10
Aug 8, 2020 evan's Blog
Android 10 changes how applications can store data. If you use the File component you will want to read this blog entry which discusses how MIT App Inventor is adapting to this change.
MIT App Inventor Story Festival
Jun 23, 2020 karen's Blog
MIT App Inventor wants to hear your story! What fun, interesting, informative ways have you used App Inventor? Share with our community!
YR Media publishes In the Black Mirror
May 21, 2020 karen's Blog
In the Black Mirror: What Artificial Intelligence Means for Race, Art and the Apocalypse is a dynamic set of interviews between young people from YR Media’s youth-led newsroom and some of the biggest minds in A.I.
FOSDEM 2020 Trip Report
May 18, 2020 evan's Blog
The following is a guest post from MIT App Inventor Power User Peter Mathijssen.
A little report of our visit to FOSDEM 2020 in Brussel, Belgium.
FOSDEM was held in the weekend of Feb 1 and 2.
Vishwas arrived...
MIT App Inventor Coronavirus App Challenge
Apr 10, 2020 selim's Blog
An unprecedented opportunity for Computational Action
We invite our fantastically creative MIT App Inventor community from all ages to put their ingenuity to good use and create socially conscious mobile apps that will help defeat the spread of the disease, aid our local communities and give strength to our fellow world citizens in these difficult times.
MIT App Inventor in Brazil
Mar 20, 2020 selim's Blog
Over January 2020, MIT App Inventor, partnered with C6 Bank, sent a group of six students over to the city of SĂŁo Paulo to teach App Inventor. Our group consisted of students Murielle Dunand, Diego Escobedo, Tommy Heng, Victor Horta, Talia Pelts, and Viktoriya Tabunshchyk.
MIT App Inventor at Kentucky Middle School
Jan 13, 2020 selim's Blog
...a stellar MIT App Inventor workshop via videoconference to a class of eager eighth graders in Appalachian Kentucky. The middle schoolers had a great opportunity to learn how to create their first mobile app and pose questions to our MIT students about their experiences at MIT.
Labinsane App Optimizes Experimental Animal Care
Dec 3, 2019 karen's Blog
A project conducted by graduate student Carlos Poblete at the Obesity and Comorbidities Research Center in Brazil led to development of the Labinsane app that optimizes anesthesia and analgesia during experimental animal interventions.
Lyra Blizzard Logan Publishes App Inventor Book
Nov 27, 2019 karen's Blog
MIT Master Trainer Lyra Blizzard Logan has just published a new book, entitled Learn to Program with App Inventor.
Black Girls Code visits MIT App Inventor
Oct 28, 2019 selim's Blog
On Saturday October 5th 2019, MIT App Inventor team had the great pleasure of hosting the Boston branch of Black Girls Code at MIT CSAIL. 24 bright-eyed young women beaming with enthusiasm, arrived at the Stata Center eager for an early morning of playful discovery and intense technology immersion.
Empowering the Asian Community with Block Programming Tools
Oct 23, 2019 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Queena Ling
In a fast-paced city like Hong Kong, every moment is a competition. This is especially true for people in Hong Kong; many of them have a fully packed schedule of activities -...
Google Blockly Summit 2019 Recap
Oct 15, 2019 evan's Blog
Last week I attended the Google Blockly Summit 2019. For those of you who might not know what Blockly is, it is the JavaScript library that powers MIT App Inventor’s blocks editor (also Scratch, Microsoft MakeCode, Code.org and many more). The summit was a two day event at Google’s Mountain...
App Inventor finally came to Tokyo!! First App Inventor workshop for educators in Tokyo
Oct 10, 2019 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Masao Ishihara.
On September 4th, the first MIT App Inventor workshop for educators was held at STEMON head learning studio in Ogikubo, Tokyo. The workshop was planned and run by Masao Ishihara, the first...
MIT App Inventor Reaches 10 Million Users, and Other Milestones
Oct 7, 2019 evan's Blog
This year is a year of milestones for MIT App Inventor.
Back in August, we celebrated 10 years of App Inventor at the MIT App Inventor Summit. Over the weekend, MIT App Inventor saw its 10 millionth app inventor start a project. It’s great to see that over 10 million...
MIT App Inventor for iOS version 0.9 takes off in TestFlight
Sep 25, 2019 evan's Blog
The MIT App Inventor team is pleased to announce version 0.9 of the MIT App Inventor companion for iOS. This is part of our continuting cooperation with Apple to let people create apps for iOS devices in addition to Android devices.
One design goal of MIT’s iOS effort is that...
27 New MIT Master Trainers Become Certified
Aug 16, 2019 karen's Blog
On July 29-31, twenty-seven educators from 7 different countries attended the MIT Master Trainers in Educational Mobile Computing workshop in their final step to becoming certified as a Master Trainer.
To become certified, the Master Trainers had to first...
MIT App Inventor Middle School Curriculum Introduced at NMSI K-12 CS Pathways Summer Institute in Dallas, TX
Aug 15, 2019 selim's Blog
Between July 22-26, 2019 MIT App Inventor collaborated with NMSI (National Math and Science Initiative) and held a five-day workshop for 24 teachers, STEM coaches, curriculum developers from all over the nation.
JUVENTUD APK: From consumers to inventors in Cuba
Aug 8, 2019 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Jose Luis Nez
One of the most important goals of MIT App Inventor is that anyone can create apps that impact the world. In this sense, UNESCO is working throught YouthMobile initiative...
Tackling Trash with App Inventor at TechBoston Academy
May 15, 2019 karen's Blog
On April 22, 2019, over 85 students from TechBoston Academy presented their STEAM projects at MITs Stata Center...
Hacking School System with App Inventor at Preface
Apr 29, 2019 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Anna Yu
Combining Coding and Psychology to Create Societal Impact
Apr 22, 2019 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Queena Ling
Like many budding psychology students, Suki has a strong desire to aid those with special needs or suffering from mental health problems. Unlike her fellow psychology students however, Suki has taken...
Starting Coding from a Young Age
Feb 21, 2019 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Anna Yu.
The first Preface Hackathon of 2019 started off with a bang, as Preface coders aged 9-12 aimed to build on their past year of creating impactful applications for the community. The past...
MIT App Inventor for iOS Enters Beta Testing
Feb 15, 2019 evan's Blog
The MIT App Inventor team is delighted to announce that weve passed a major milestone on the way to providing App Inventor for iOS.
Apple accepted MIT App Inventor for iOS into the TestFlight beta testing program this week. This lets us begin beta testing with small groups of users....
Trip Report: Computers, Privacy & Data Protection 2019
Feb 6, 2019 evan's Blog
I recently traveled to Brussels, Belgium for the CPDP 2019 conference. Privacy and data protection are important for MIT App Inventor, not only because we support educational outreach around the world, but because we want to ensure that people who build apps with MIT App Inventor can be...
New Release (nb175) Planned for Thursday, February 7th.
Feb 4, 2019 jeff's Blog
We plan to release a new version of MIT App Inventor on Thursday. This version, nb175, will include a new Companion (version 2.51). The current companion (version 2.50) will continue to work, but you will require the new version to use the new functionality described below...
Change to Googles policy for the Play Store may require changes to App Inventor apps
Jan 11, 2019 hal's Blog
Google recently released a new Play Store policy that will affect some App Inventor apps. All apps that use the Texting or PhoneCall component AND are published in the Play Store must be rebuilt. The MIT App Inventor team is making a change to PhoneCall and Texting to help our...
African Union CIEFFA Stem Ambassadors Get Introduced to MIT App Inventor
Dec 9, 2018 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Evbi O"Sullivan
African Union International Centre for Girls and Women Education in Africa (AU/CIEFFA) is the arm of the African Union entrusted with promoting girls and womens education across Africa. In November 2018, fifty-five...
Joy of Coding
Nov 19, 2018 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Ming Wu
HK Children built Burger Ordering App for local restaurant
Oct 23, 2018 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Tommie Lo.
Its 11:30 in the morning, 45 minutes away to your lunch break. Having been in a rush and skipped breakfast, you are suffering from the complaint of your rumbling stomach. Here, you...
MIT App Inventor for iOS Status Update
Sep 24, 2018 evan's Blog
We know many App Inventor users are looking forward to the iOS version of MIT App Inventor. We've been working diligently on a release, and we hope to make the iOS version publicly available in the first quarter of 2019. One feature of the release that will be especially interesting...
Changing the Asian Community one App at a time - Preface Hackathon
Sep 10, 2018 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Queena Ling.
Coding education has always been viewed with utmost importance in USA and UK, and has also been an integral component of school curricula in Japan and China. Yet, many parents in...
David Tseng presents at Maker Faires
Aug 28, 2018 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by CSAIL Visiting Scientist and MIT Master Trainer David Tseng
Florida Gulf Coast University and University of South Florida Summer Camp Students Learn App Inventor
Aug 7, 2018 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Lyra Logan
Welcome 41 New MIT Master Trainers in Educational Mobile Computing
Aug 6, 2018 karen's Blog
On July 30 - August 1, 2018, 41 educators and entrepreneurs participated in part 3 of the MIT Master Trainers in Educational Mobile Computing program, a three day in-person workshop at MIT. In the workshop, participants learned more about the inner workings of MIT...
SmartCity linked App development at E2C
Jun 27, 2018 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Pierre Huguet and Marie-Caroline Gries
Ecole de la deuxime chance is a public network of...
#GirlsMakeTech Hong Kong in support of Technovation 2018!
Jun 14, 2018 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Ringo Lee
Many thanks to Brian Tang for the invitation to #GirlsMakeTech Hong Kong in support of Technovation 2018!
After a day long #GirlsMakeTech Workshop@WeWork and 2 days of...
Smarthuerto, a Smart Decision
Jun 12, 2018 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Jose Luis Nez
With this slogan, a mixture of English and Spanish, six students from IES Isbilya from Seville (Spain), managed to win the first edition of the Grow-Lab contest of the...
App Inventor: Who do we train and from where do we teach ?
May 17, 2018 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainers Youmna Ovazza and Pierre Huguet.
App Inventor empowers normal people to build Apps that are...
The Connected Classroom
May 1, 2018 karen's Blog
Hello! Im Cindy Kim from the Chinese International School in Hong Kong. I started to code with Scratch when I was in Year 7, and then with MIT App Inventor after I joined a coding camp for girls. Later on in Year 10, I had an idea for a Co-Curricular...
6 Award Winning Apps from AppJamming Summit 2018
Apr 18, 2018 karen's Blog
Read about the AppJamming Summit 2018, held in Hong Kong, and hosted by First Code Academy.
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Michelle Sun.
Coding Hackathon With Business School Students in Paris, France
Apr 17, 2018 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainers Youmna Ovazza and Pierre Huguet.
The ISG (Institut Suprieur de Gestion) is a French business school offering MBA programs. Pierre and I had taught a group...
CoderDojo-coaches translate App Inventor to Dutch
Apr 3, 2018 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by Maarten Thimpont of CoderDojo Belgium
I made a little game on my tablet, explains Zinnia (10 years old) while firing up here tablet. If my picture appears on the screen, I should tab it as fast as...
Responsive Design: Drag a Canvas larger than screen size
Mar 18, 2018 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Emile Wong
App Inventor against Cyberbullying
Mar 15, 2018 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Jose Luis Nez
Two 16-year-old students from IES Isbilya, Seville(Spain), have developed a mobile application using MIT App Inventor to raise community awareness of the problem of cyberbullying.
The work, which is in the...
#GirlsMakeTech Hong Kong in support of Technovation 2018 Launch
Feb 8, 2018 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Ringo Lee
On January 26, 2018, MIT AppInventor Master Trainers, Ringo Lee and Emile Wong, joined the launch of #GirlsMakeTech Hong Kong in support of the Technovation 2018 launch held at Hong Kong University. The...
Miami Mobile App Lab Students Prepare to Develop Apps for First Non-profit Client
Jan 21, 2018 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Lyra Logan.
This fall, the Florida Education Fund (FEF) opened its first Mobile App Lab at William H. Turner Technical Arts High School in northwest Miami-Dade County, Florida. At the Mobile App Lab, FEF, through...
App Inventor Makes a Surprise Appearance at CES 2018
Jan 10, 2018 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Rich Interdonato
Each year I attend CES to see what the latest consumer electronics look like so I can share the observations with my students at the University of Utah. This year, I...
Teaching App Inventor in Hong Kong: Map Component
Dec 27, 2017 karen's Blog
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...
App Inventor for iOS is in progress
Dec 19, 2017 evan's Blog
Hello App Inventors! We are excited to announce that we are implementing MIT App Inventor for iOS! Support for iOS has been one of the most frequent feature requests over the years, and we can't wait to see all of the great projects people will build for this new platform....
New Component Release on December 27th
Dec 15, 2017 jeff's Blog
We are planning a Component Release of MIT App Inventor around December 27th. Component Releases require the installation of a new MIT AI2 Companion App in order to receive full functionality.
Watershed Protection Hackathon in Austin
Dec 12, 2017 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Suzan Dalgic.
Racing robots in Brazil with App Inventor!
Nov 16, 2017 hedge's Blog
Guest post by Davi Hasuda of Brazil. The ROBOCOMP19 is a project to develop small vibration-based racing robots controlled through a mobile application over Bluetooth. The project was conceived by Professor Douglas Soares within the Brazilian Aeronautics Institute of Technology (ITA), one of the most distinguished universities in Brazil, and...
Things we learned from teaching 25,000 kids how to code
Nov 13, 2017 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by Philipp Knodel of App Camps Germany
With our non-profit App Camps we provide teaching resources for teachers and schools to teach coding. Teaching resources means: short videos and tutorials. Our goal is...
Technovation workshop at Roxbury Innovation Center
Nov 6, 2017 karen's Blog
The MIT App Inventor team presented at a workshop for interested girls, teachers, and parents at the Roxbury Innovation Center on Saturday, November 4. While the numbers were low, the enthusiasm was evident as participants tried out the new App Building Guide, Bootleg Snapchat. The event was sponsored...
UNESCO YOUTHMOBILE: My First Training Assignment as a MIT App Inventor Master Trainer
Oct 31, 2017 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Evbi O'Sullivan
Two New Tutorials on Using Javascript in App Inventor
Oct 6, 2017 karen's Blog
MIT Master Trainer Rich Interdonato, Professor at the University of Utah, has written two tutorials that show readers how to utilize the WebViewer component to execute javascript code.
Teen-Code
Oct 3, 2017 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Youmna Ovazza
I am writing to you from Paris to introduce Teen-Code to the international App Inventor community!
Teen-Code started back a little less than a year ago in Paris, France and aims at...Building your own apps: App Summer Camp for Girls in Germany
Sep 27, 2017 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by Diana Knodel of App Camps Germany
In 2013 we came across MIT App Inventor and were fascinated immediately. It allows you the build your own apps without prior coding experience - and along the way you...
Upcoming Feature: Maps
Sep 26, 2017 evan's Blog
Hello App Inventors! We are adding a new feature to MIT App Inventor: Maps! The Maps update will include seven new components you can leverage to build a wide range of geographically oriented applications, including finding the best places for pizza, favorite hangout spots, walking/hiking trackers, and more. Map: Renders...
18 New Master Trainers in Educational Mobile Computing
Aug 14, 2017 karen's Blog
Congratulations to our newest MIT Master Trainers! Eighteen people, hailing from seven different countries, travelled to MIT to participate in our second annual three day capstone workshop July 31-Aug 2. To be part of the three day workshop, participants first completed an online MOOC,...
About our new MIT App Inventor logo
Aug 11, 2017 karen's Blog
Why do we need a new logo? The MIT App Inventor team felt it was time to move away from our Android-specific green droid. When you use MIT App Inventor next you will see the new logo in the upper left hand corner of the...
MIT App Inventor Team nominated for Distinguished Leadership Award
Aug 10, 2017 hal's Blog
August 10, 2017
We on the MIT App Inventor team are thrilled to announce that our team has been nominated to receive...
Students hack plastic pollution with MIT App Inventor apps
Aug 7, 2017 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Suzan Dalgic
Upcoming App Inventor Features
Aug 2, 2017 evan's Blog
Hello App Inventors! Were so glad youre with us! We wanted to let you know that we are making some big changes to MIT App Inventor. First, the next release of App Inventor will require Android devices running Android system 2.1 or higher (API level 8). We need to make...
MIT Master Trainer at JASON National Conference 2017 at George Washington University
Jul 17, 2017 karen's Blog
MIT Master Trainer Suzan Dalgic held a session at the JASON National Conference with Dr.Luk Hendrik and Eric Winkler (MIT SANA project lead software developer) to introduce MIT App Inventor to science teachers on June 24th, 2017. Most of the participants in this session have never worked on App Inventor...
MIT App Inventor + Internet of Things Release
Jun 19, 2017 mark's Blog
MIT App Inventor is excited to announce the release of a new expansion to App Inventor that will allow you to design, create, and interact with the Internet of Things (IoT). The Internet of Things refers to interfaces between everyday objects and the Internet, opening up a universe of new...
The 2017 Google App Inventor Contest kicks off
Jun 14, 2017 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by Kathy Deng, Google China
In 2014, Google China launched the first nationwide App Inventor contest for students from high schools and middle...
CoderDojo, Community-based Programming Clubs for Young People
Jun 13, 2017 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Sjaak Bosman.
On April 29th MIT Master Trainer Sjaak Bosman has given a Show & Tell presentation and workshop to introduce...
New Release of MIT App Inventor Expected on Thursday
May 22, 2017 jeff's Blog
On Thursday evening (Eastern United States Time) we will be deploying a new release of MIT App Inventor (version nb156).
This is a non-component release, which means that there is no new version of the MIT AI2 Companion to download or update. The major change is a...
Welcome to our new Blocks Editor
May 18, 2017 jeff's Blog
Thank you for your interest in helping us test an upcoming major release of MIT App Inventor.
In this release we will be making a major update to the Blocks Editor. A list of changes/features is included below.
If you would like to help us...
App Inventor and Maker (2): Bluetooth Desk LED Light
Apr 13, 2017 karen's Blog
This is the latest blog post from MIT Master Trainer Xiangqun (Juliet) Chen. Check out the first prize winning app in 2016 Guangdong Student Maker Contest!
CS Unplugged in New Zealand
Apr 13, 2017 karen's Blog
I was lucky enough to spend a day last week at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand with Tim Bell and his CS Unplugged team. We had quite a long discussion on computer science, pedagogy, and curricula. The Unplugged team is...
UNESCO YouthMobile Event in Doha
Mar 10, 2017 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by Felicia Kamriani.
On March 7, 2017, I was invited to speak to students and teachers at the UNESCO YouthMobile event in Doha Qatar. YouthMobile was part of TumuhaTECs Digital Youth Festival at QITCOM 2017, Qatars biggest digital...
App Inventor and Makers (1): Smart Bathtub
Mar 3, 2017 karen's Blog
This is the latest blog post from MIT Master Trainer Xiangqun (Juliet) Chen. Check out 9th grade students who make a smart bathtub with MIT App Inventor and Arduino.
Becoming a Middle School Computer Programming Teacher
Feb 24, 2017 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Sarah Blanchette.
App Inventor Mentioned in Batgirl Comics
Feb 24, 2017 karen's Blog
MIT App Inventor was mentioned in the latest Batgirl DC Comic Book, when Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl, volunteers at a coding workshop at a local elementary school. They even added a link to the App Inventor site! Image from Batgirl (2016-) #8 Son of...
Verizon Innovative Learning App Challenge Winners Announced
Feb 17, 2017 karen's Blog
The Best in Nation winners of the Verizon Innovative Learning App Challenge where just announced. Eight teams from around the country were awarded $15,000 by Verizon Innovative Learning, in addition to the $5000 they were awarded as one of 100 Best in State teams....
Working with the ITunes API
Feb 15, 2017 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT graduate and former MIT App Inventor team member Aubrey Colter In May 2015, I went to Oakland, CA, to teach an App Inventor workshop to a group of students at Youth Radio. I wanted to teach...
EU Code Week 2016 and MIT App Inventor
Feb 10, 2017 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Rosanna Kurrer
EU Code Week (http://codeweek.eu/) is a grassroots movement which started in 2012 and is supported by the European Commission, and has since spread to over 50 countries around the world. The European...
Challenges and tips for teaching a large coding class
Feb 7, 2017 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Anqi Zhou.
During summer 2016, I had the opportunity to teach App Inventor to classes of 30 beginners aged 10 - 12 in Beijing. It was exciting to bring the power of coding to...
Technovation 2017 Workshop at MIT
Feb 7, 2017 josh's Blog
On Saturday, January 23, 100+ people attended the MIT App Inventor session at the Stata Center at MIT to prepare for Technovation 2017. Huge thanks to the rest of the App Inventor team, including Lisa Yuan, Mike Tissenbaum, Paul Medlock-Walton, Jane Im & Marisol Diaz for their parts in making...
My Experience at the App Inventor Summit
Jan 26, 2017 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Yen Yen Lim
Teaching Maths App Project
Jan 23, 2017 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Carly Lam.
Maths Survival Game Project involves creating a mobile game with MIT App Inventor that upon starting, will prompt maths questions to pop up on the screen, which the player will have...
New Release (nb154) coming next Friday
Jan 22, 2017 jeff's Blog
This coming Friday, January 27th, we will be releasing version nb154 of MIT App Inventor.
This is a component release, which means that it updates the component software used on devices by MIT App Inventor developed applications. Most of the changes are bugfixes or updates needed to...
Photo analysis with Microsoft Cognitive Services, using Makeblock CamVision extension
Jan 18, 2017 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer David Tseng of CAVEDU Education.
This is a simple project combining App Inventor and Microsoft Cognitive Services :Computer Vision API. The app can upload a picture to Microsoft Cognitive Services :Computer Vision...
App Inventor and IoTs
Jan 18, 2017 karen's Blog
Please read the latest blog by MIT Master Trainer Xiangqun "Juliet" Chen.
Opportunity
Jan 10, 2017 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Sue Maddock.
Spanish Teachers Learn App Inventor to Teach Computational Thinking
Dec 8, 2016 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Jose Luis Nez
Last Friday, we ran an Android App Development workshop using MIT App Inventor with students of the Master de Profesorado de Enseñanza Secundaria at Pablo de Olavide University in Seville, Spain....
New "I Love My Smartphone Curriculum" Released
Nov 23, 2016 karen's Blog
Jeremy Scott, of The Royal Society of Edinburgh, just released version 2 of his middle/high school curriculum on mobile app development that features MIT App Inventor. The new resources include a tutor pack, learner pack, screencasts, apps, and media files, all downloadable and free to use. This is a great...
2016 Shenzhen student App Inventor Contest
Nov 15, 2016 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT App Inventor Master Trainer Xiangqun Chen.
The 2nd Shenzhen Student Maker Festival was held at mid-October. The...
MIT Master Trainer at Texas Charter School Association Conference
Oct 21, 2016 karen's Blog
Suzan Dalgic MIT Master Trainer from Harmony Public Schools had a great session of Mobile Education - MIT App Inventor at Texas Charter School Association Conference on October 12, 2016 in Austin, TX. She introduced MIT App Inventor to the other Texas charter...
An easy way to add a bar graph to your app in App Inventor
Oct 6, 2016 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Clark Hochgraf
You can create a simple bar graph in App Inventor using a button and a vertical arrangement. In the image below, the blue bar is a button whose height percent is set...
Computational Thinking Concepts with App Inventor for Primary School Children
Sep 12, 2016 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Carly Lam
CS One Academy offers programs to familiarise primary school children with computer science and programming. Technology and computers is already woven so deeply and intricately into our society, there is no doubt...
Google Translate API and App Inventor: An Alternative to Yandex
Sep 2, 2016 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Yvon Morin
Nowadays, the number of connected devices available through the Internet has led to connected people. The infrastructure that supports all the communications between devices is also known as the Internet of Things(IoT)....
MOSTEC Inventors Showcase Summer Apps
Sep 1, 2016 karen's Blog
MOSTEC, the MIT Online Science, Technology, and Engineering Community program, allows rising high school seniors the opportunity for academic study in several areas of STEM during the summer, followed by several months of enrichment activities during the fall of their senior year.
Students choose to focus in...
WeTeach_CS Summit
Sep 1, 2016 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Krishnendu Roy
The Center for STEM Education at The University of Texas at Austin hosted the first WeTeach_CS Summit during June 7-9, 2016 (http://www.thetrc.org/cs-summit-2016/). In this K12 teachers workshop around 280 K12 teachers...
Experiments with Virtual Reality and MIT App Inventor
Aug 29, 2016 hal's Blog
Interest in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) applications is exploding. Last month's Pokemon Go craze barely hints at what's coming. Should we look forward to App Inventor creating apps with VR and AR? < p /> I want to give a shout- out to Kseniia Shumelchyk , who...
Synchronizing Time With App Inventor
Aug 29, 2016 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Rich Interdonato
Synchronizing time across mobile devices is a very challenging problem for app makers. The moment you try to use App Inventor to make something happen on more than one device at exactly...
Feel the Math with App Inventor
Aug 23, 2016 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Angie Zhou
For a lot of young students, learning mathematics means rules to memorize and word problems that exist on paper. But as adults, we know having a sophisticated understanding of mathematical concepts will...
Welcome Mike Tissenbaum and Evan Patton to the MIT App Inventor team
Aug 8, 2016 hal's Blog
Welcome Mike Tissenbaum and Evan Patton to the MIT App Inventor team Those of us at MIT this summer already know Mike and Evan, but I'd like to announce to the entire App Inventor community our delight at welcoming two our new members to the core MIT App Inventor team....
Heart Rate Monitor with Arduino/Genuino 101
Aug 8, 2016 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Jose Luis Nez
Nowadays, the number of connected devices available through the Internet has led to connected people. The infrastructure that supports all the communications between devices is also known as the Internet of...
App Inventors debt to Seymour Papert
Aug 7, 2016 hal's Blog
To the App Inventor Community:
I join in grief with my colleagues in computing and education at passing of Seymour Papert on July 31, 2016. Papert was the worlds preeminent visionary in educational technology: you can read testaments to his greatness in the obituaries in the New York Times...MIT App Inventor and Youth Radio to launch the Youth News Network STEM desk
Jul 25, 2016 hal's Blog
Im exhilarated to announce that MIT App Inventor and Youth Radio (https://youthradio.org/) are beginning a 3-year initiative to launch the STEM Desk for Youth News Network (YNN). YNN will be a new nationwide model for STEM education based on youth-driven, multimedia journalism and related app development with App Inventor....
AITech - Using Procedures and Any component blocks
Jul 25, 2016 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT Master Trainer Sjaak Bosman
When components in your app have similar behavior, you can end up with a lot of blocks almost doing the same thing. Using Procedures and Any component blocks not only gives you...
Pedometer Component Simplifies Accelerometer Sensor Data
Jul 20, 2016 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog post by MIT App Inventor Master Trainer Rich Interdonato.
An online App Inventor course is now being offered by the Department of Health Promotion and Education at the University of Utah....
2016 Google CS4HS Shenzhen
Jul 14, 2016 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT App Inventor Master Trainer Xiangqun Chen.
My three-day CS4HS workshop was held in June. More than 40 teachers came to have the training. Most of them are novices on App Inventor.
Two weeks before the workshop,...
New Release Features Extensions, Bluetooth LE & LEGO EV3
Jun 16, 2016 josh's Blog
Late the evening of June 15, EDT, the MIT App Inventor team pushed a significant component release to its live, public-facing main instance. More information about the release is available. This release enables extension components, which for now are non-visible components only, which may be written by...
New App Inventor for Educators Site Launched
Jun 13, 2016 karen's Blog
In an effort build a productive and positive educational community around the use of MIT App Inventor, a new website has now launched. teach.appinventor.mit.edu is a site where educators can share ideas, search and post resources, and ask questions about App Inventor....
Guangzhou Education Information Center(GEIC) Stages App Inventor Robot Contest
Jun 3, 2016 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by Zanjian Li, from the GuangZhou Education Information Center
On May 8th, the Robot Competition for Primary school and Secondary School Students of Guangzhou 2016 was successfully held by the Guangzhou Education Information Center (GEIC). 305 teams from 166 schools participated in the competition....
Integrating MIT App Inventor into Hoa Sen University IT Curriculum
May 27, 2016 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog post by MIT App Inventor Master Trainer Khoi Nguyen Tran Minh, a lecturer at Hoa Sen University, Vietnam
It is good news that after attending the MIT Master Trainers Program in Educational Mobile Computing, I am able...
The Science Temple
May 25, 2016 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT App Inventor Master Trainer Xiangqun Chen.
Every year we have two Disciplines Festivals; the autumn term is Art Festival, the spring term is Science Festival. So this term is Science Festival. The junior and senior parts...
Celebrating International Girls in ICT day in Europe
May 10, 2016 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by MIT App Inventor Master Trainer Rosanna Kurrer.
There is a growing awareness that increasing diversity and inclusion in the tech industry is indispensable...
Massachusetts Technovation Pitch Night a Great Success
May 6, 2016 karen's Blog
Massachusetts Technovation Pitch Night took place on Wednesday, May 4, at the Microsoft NERD Center in Cambridge, MA. MassTLC worked with Technovation to organize and run the event.
Thirty-nine teams of girls from across the state presented their app and business plans...
MIT App Inventor and Hong Kong Jockey Club Announce Joint Project
May 4, 2016 karen's Blog
May, 2016 The MIT Appinventor Project is proud to announce that we have been selected by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust to join them in a four-year program to promote Coding Education in Primary Schools for Hong Kong. The program is a research partnership of the Trust with...
Hundreds Try App Inventor at MIT Open House
Apr 26, 2016 karen's Blog
Over 40,000 people flocked to Cambridge on Saturday, April 23 to check out the MIT Under the Dome Open House event. Attendees were able to view over 380 exhibits around campus involving 80 different departments. The MIT App Inventor...
The Tech Girls of Dharavi Slum, Mahim, Mumbai, India
Apr 20, 2016 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by the Dharavi Tech Girls
My name is Anu. I was born in Nayanagar, Dharavi slum neighborhood, Mahim, Mumbai. I am the first generation from my family to go to school. I lost my father in 2013 in a road accident when I...
A Great Initiative to Teach App inventor in Bangla By Niloy Shuvo
Apr 14, 2016 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog by Anisul Haque SHIKKHOK.COM, a well known platform for teaching in the Bengali language, won a 2013 Google Rise Award, 2013 The Bobs user award, ISIF Award and so on. SHIKKHOK means Teacher in English. For 3 years...
App Inventor part of Science on Saturday at MIT
Apr 12, 2016 karen's Blog
The MIT EECS department presented Science on Saturday, Circuits and Computers edition, at the Kresge Auditorium in conjunction with the MIT Museum on Saturday, April 2. Over 1000 people attended the event, which featured on-stage demos by various EECS faculty and staff on electricity, energy, motion and App Inventor. After...
App Inventor Clicker App Makes a Difference in the Classroom
Apr 8, 2016 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog post by Ken Masters, of Sultan Qaboos University in Oman
All photos courtesy of Salim Al-Harthi
I had to make quite big changes to the way in which I presented my course, and...
BusBudE Secure Travel Notification System
Apr 4, 2016 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog post by the BusBudE team, South Fayette Township School District, Pennsylvania
Every problem has its solution. You just have to be creative enough to find it.
Travis Kalanick - Co-founder of Uber
Welcome 30 New Master Trainers in Mobile Educational Computing
Mar 28, 2016 josh's Blog
We had an spectacular experience this past week we had 30 people, from 18 countries, come together to be trained as MIT Master Trainers in Mobile Educational Computing (with MIT App Inventor), put together jointly with the MIT Professional Education Short Programs group.
Together with the amazing folks...
Seeking Applicants for Positions on App Inventor Team
Mar 21, 2016 josh's Blog
As part of a major initiative we'll be undertaking with collaborators from Hong Kong and sponsored by the generosity of the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, the MIT App Inventor team is seeking applicants for three new staff positions.
Though this post is mostly an update to Hal's...
Altona Middle School Team Builds Diction Defender App
Mar 3, 2016 karen's Blog
Last weekend, I had the pleasure of meeting the Altona Middle School team from Longmont, Colorado, who is one of the eight Best in Nation Verizon App Challenge winners. They were beginning their App Inventor training to learn the skills necessary to develop...
MIT App Inventor Update February 25, 2016
Feb 27, 2016 hal's Blog
New Release Coming (nb147)
Feb 11, 2016 jeff's Blog
We will be deploying a new release of MIT App Inventor on Thursday afternoon on February 18th (2016-02-19 02:00:00 UTC). The details are in the Release Notes (DRAFT).
This release adds new Components and Features to MIT App Inventor and we will be deploying a...
App Inventor program in Germany receives 250.000 from Google.org
Feb 10, 2016 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog post by Diana Knodel, AppCamps Germany App Camps is a German non-profit that uses the MIT App Inventor to teach coding and app development in schools. Out of thousands of projects, the non-profit was selected as...
Verizon App Challenge Best in Nation Winners Announced
Feb 3, 2016 karen's Blog
The Best in Nation Finalists for the Verizon App Challenge were announced today. Congratulations to all the winners, not only of the Best in Nation, but Best in State, and Best in Region. Middle school and high school teams from around the...
Two App Inventor tablets for under $100
Jan 29, 2016 hal's Blog
I recently tested App Inventor with two low-priced tablets, the Kindle Fire 7" and the HP 7 G2. Both of these work fine with App Inventor. They could be reasonable choices for school or personal use, provided you have WiFi don't need phone calls or cellular connections. Here are instructions...
MIT App Inventor Translated to Brazilian Portuguese
Jan 26, 2016 josh's Blog
This is a guest post by Eduardo Valle
Google App Inventor Competition in China a Huge Success
Jan 25, 2016 karen's Blog
This is a guest blog post by Kathy Deng, Google China
We just wrapped up the 2015 App Inventor contest for high school and middle school students in China contest website in Chinese, which rolled out in June. This is...
US FIRST Robotics Uses App Inventor to Design Robot Controllers
Jan 21, 2016 karen's Blog
This is a guest post by Thomas Eng, US FIRST
FIRST is a non-profit organization, founded by inventor Dean Kamen, with a mission to inspire young people to pursue careers in science and technology. FIRST engages children with exciting, Mentor-based programs that build...
Students Win App Competition in Hong Kong with App Inventor
Jan 20, 2016 karen's Blog
This is a guest post by AU Hoi Kin, Head of Academic Department, Pak Kau College, Hong Kong
Chiu Wai Hang, Chan Pak Long and Ho Kai Yui from Pak Kau College in Hong Kong were recent winners of...
Russian Language App Inventor Education Site Launched
Dec 29, 2015 karen's Blog
Mobile Apps Academy web site - http://appinvent.ru was launched in Russia in December, 2015. The site is intended for Russian speaking school teachers who plan to teach development of Android apps with MIT App Inventor.
App of the Month winner also wins Google India Code To Learn contest!
Dec 27, 2015 emilyg's Blog
We received the good news earlier this week that Arjun S., inventor of the Locatera bus manager app, is one of the winners of Google India's Code To Learn contest! Arjun is a 10th grader whose apps have made a large impact. His most popular app is Locatera -...
App Inventor Team Watches CodeGirl
Dec 21, 2015 emilyg's Blog
Mexican Students Win Top Spot in National Science Fair with App Inventor
Dec 16, 2015 karen's Blog
Two female Mexican students, Roxana Galilea and Reyna Guadalupe, won first place in a national science fair (Expo Ciencia Nacional 15) using App Inventor. Their prototype app, Digi Voz Sistem, can recognize voice commands and transmit them through Bluetooth to an Arduino microprocessor to open doors, turn lights on and...
iVolunteer for Chennai
Dec 14, 2015 josh's Blog
Indian Youth Builds App to Mobilize Resources for Disaster Relief
When deadly floods hit the Indian city of Chennai (Madras) in early December 2015, the award winning app inventor, Arjun Kumar put on his inventors hat once again, to build his newest app, iVolunteer for...
Superior Deca Squad Participates in FIRST Lego League
Dec 9, 2015 karen's Blog
Last week I had the privilege of meeting, via Skype, the members of the Superior Deca Squad from Herndon, VA. They were preparing to present their project at the Virginia State Meet of FIRST (for the Inspiration and Recognition...
YouTuber Tutorials! - Week of December 7, 2015
Dec 8, 2015 ryan's Blog
Introduction to MIT App Inventor 2
If you are completely new to MIT...
Hong Kong City University Apps Lab
Nov 19, 2015 felicia's Blog
The mission of City University Apps Lab (CAL) is to promote coding education in Hong Kong. Started in 2013 by Dr. Ray Cheung, Associate Professor in Electronic Engineering, CAL seeks to expose...
YouTuber Tutorials! - Week of November 16, 2015
Nov 16, 2015 ryan's Blog
Blog Post # 8
YouTuber Tutorials - Week of November 16
YouTuber Tutorials! - Week of November 9, 2015
Nov 10, 2015 ryan's Blog
Barcode Scanner
For our Spanish-speaking audience, we have a YouTube channel that teaches its lessons entirely in Spanish....
NSF Award to Team from Boise State to Research with App Inventor
Nov 4, 2015 josh's Blog
This is a guest blog post by Dr. Yu-Chang Hsu from Boise State University Our team at Boise State University is really excited to have been awarded a grant recently by the National Science Foundation. Our project and research focus on enhancing undergraduate STEM majors learning in mathematics, particularly trigonometry,...
YouTuber Tutorials This Week!
Oct 19, 2015 ryan's Blog
List Randomizer, Item Deletion, and Reloading Tutorial
If you’ve been keeping up with my blog posts,...
Making the Hilltop Sunset App Part 3: Linking Websites and Changing Colors
Oct 14, 2015 ryan's Blog
After figuring out how to add all my lyrics, and display them in an easy-to-read format, I was finally starting to get the hang of navigating all the different block types MIT App Inventor had to offer, and getting a strong sense of what they did and what they were...
Reactions to a CS10k Webinar: Block Party
Oct 11, 2015 josh's Blog
Note: This post is re-blogged from https://csforhumanity.wordpress.com/2015/10/12/reactions-to-a-cs10k-webinar-block-party/. I write this without having listened to the recording of the first half of the webinar, Block Party: Meet Some of the Creative Minds Behind Blockly, Scratch, and More!, which took place live on the evening of October 7, 2015. I hope...
The MIT Master Trainers Program
Oct 9, 2015 felicia's Blog
The MIT App Inventor team is excited to announce the inaugural MIT Master Trainers Program in Educational Mobile Computing.
Making the Hilltop Sunset App Part 2: Problem Solving and Creating a Song List
Oct 6, 2015 ryan's Blog
Well, it turns out I was right; I was able to make lists delete entries as Id set out to do at the end of my last post! It was a bit more complicated than anything else I had done: I had to combine a Remove List Item block with...
UNESCO YouthMobile
Oct 5, 2015 felicia's Blog
The UNESCO YouthMobile Initiative has launched the 1st of a series of training workshops of young students in mobile apps programming in Abuja, Nigeria. The training program was based on the beginner and intermediate levels of the App Inventor curriculum from the...
UNESCO Youth Forum
Sep 25, 2015 felicia's Blog
UNESCO Youth Forum MIT App Inventor will be participating in the UNESCO Youth Forum Youth for Change conference in Paris, France, October 26-28, 2015. As the Manager of Educational Outreach and Business...
Youth Radio
Sep 25, 2015 felicia's Blog
Are you up to date on whats happening with Youth Radio in Oakland, California? Heres a quick run down.
Upcoming App Contests
Sep 24, 2015 felicia's Blog
Are you a budding mobile app developer who has made apps for family and friends, but is now looking to reach a wider audience? wants to get feedback from users around the globe? is wondering what it takes to have a successful or best selling app?
Making the Hilltop Sunset App Part 1: Wheel-O-Songs, a List Randomizer
Sep 21, 2015 ryan's Blog
Today I built my very own original app on MIT App Inventor.
Im not a computer scientist, Im not an expert programmer, and Ive never taken any classes on the subject; Im just a singer/songwriter with a degree in English and Creative Writing--and a dream. But even with literally zero...
My First Impression of App Inventor
Sep 14, 2015 ryan's Blog
Have you ever caught yourself thinking “I wish there was an app for that”? Maybe you wished there was a one-click rimshot on your phone to punctuate your bad jokes, or perhaps you’ve always wanted an interactive grocery list that knows all your favorite foods so you don’t have to...
Exciting News from Boise State University
Sep 11, 2015 josh's Blog
We just heard some very exciting news from our good friend Yu-Chang Hsu at Boise State University: The National Science Foundation Directorate of Education and Human Resources has awarded Boise State University a $163,660 supplemental funding grant to support using App Inventor to help STEM students learn trigonometry by developing...
MOSTEC
Aug 7, 2015 felicia's Blog
MOSTEC (MIT Online Science, Technology, and Engineering Community) is a six-month program for eligible rising seniors offered through the MIT Office of Engineering Outreach Programs. It combines online curriculum with a week long on-site project-based workshop at MIT. One of the tracts offered was mobile app development...
App Inventor Extension Components available for testing
Aug 4, 2015 hal's Blog
The MIT App Inventor team is delighted to announce the availability of Extension Components for testing. We hope the Extension Components will prove to be a major enhancement to App Inventor: Extensions provide a way for anyone to build their own App Inventor components, which others can then use in...
French Translation
Jul 30, 2015 felicia's Blog
Due to the hard work and dedication of Adel Kassah, a middle school computer science teacher in Tunisia, the App Inventor platform is now translated into French!
App Inventor in Russian!
Jul 21, 2015 felicia's Blog
MIT App Inventor has been used in Russia for several years by teaching enthusiasts, who find it an excellent transition tool from Scratch to more complicated Android apps. But, the lack of a Russian interface was a stumbling block for a long time. Finally this obstacle has been removed!
MIT App Inventor Classic RIP (Jan. 2012 - Jul. 2015)
Jul 15, 2015 hal's Blog
MIT App Inventor Classic RIP (Jan. 2012 - Jul. 2015)
Today we’re shutting down MIT App Inventor Classic. It’s been a great run. Even here at the end, the system is hosting 3000 active users a week. That’s down from 6500 in May, and vastly down from the peak...
MIT App Inventor visits China, June 2015
Jul 6, 2015 felicia's Blog
The MIT App Inventor team of Wei Li (graduate student) Andrew McKinney (Director of Software Development), and I, Felicia Kamriani (Manager of Educational Outreach & Business Development), voyaged to China for 3 weeks to meet with government officials, university professors, and business leaders to discuss ways of incorporating App Inventor in the Chinese educational systems.
Guangzhou conference on Mobile Learning and Computational Thinking based on App Inventor, June 13-15
Jul 4, 2015 hal's Blog
The 1st International Conference on Mobile Learning and Computational Thinking Education, based on App Inventor was held from June 13th to June 15th, 2015, in Guangzhou, China.
Mobile CSP Team Holds App Inventor Workshop at ISTE 2015
Jul 2, 2015 hal's Blog
Members of the Mobile CSP team traveled to Philadelphia on Sunday, June 28th, to host a workshop at ISTE 2015 (International Society for Technology in Education) on building socially useful apps in App Inventor. The workshop was attended by 30+ teachers, all of whom seemed to go away happy. Mobile...
College Board Announces Endorsement of Advanced Placement Mobile CSP Course
Jun 22, 2015 josh's Blog
Earlier this month, The College Board and the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced an extension of their partnership to support teachers and schools in offering the new Advanced Placement (AP) Computer Science Principles (CSP) course in the fall of 2016. In their announcement, they endorsed the Mobile CSP...
MIT App Inventor Classic to MIT App Inventor 2 Converter Released
Jun 18, 2015 josh's Blog
The converter tool designed to convert MIT App Inventor Classic projects to MIT App Inventor 2 projects has just been released. Note that it is carefully, and specifically designed to convert projects from the latest version of MIT App Inventor Classic to projects readable by MIT App Inventor 2...
MIT App Inventor usage triples over the 2014-2015 academic year
May 24, 2015 hal's Blog
Here's a short report and graph showing App Inventor usage for the 2014-2015 academic year. Briefly, AI2 use tripled, and there was a slow decline in use of AI Classic. See report
App Inventor Classic to Shut Down on July 15
May 24, 2015 hal's Blog
June 18, 2015 - The converter tool designed to convert MIT App Inventor Classic projects to MIT App Inventor 2 projects has just been released. Note that it is carefully, and specifically designed to convert projects from the latest version of MIT App Inventor Classic to projects readable by...
MIT Students create UMATI
May 18, 2015 felicia's Blog
MIT students Carolina Morgan, Fei Xu, Marcel Williams, and Rida Qadri created the mobile app, UMATI for the Urban Planning course 11.S938: Crowd Sourced City- Social Media, Technology and Planning Processes. The class enabled students to work with actual planning and advocacy organizations to develop digital technology solutions for planning...
NEW: Sharing and Remixing directly from MIT App Inventors Integrated Gallery!
May 18, 2015 josh's Blog
The App Inventor team is happy to announce a new feature designed to encourage sharing and exploration of projects and the code behind them. App Inventor now has an integrated gallery for sharing your apps and exploring the code of others apps! From within App Inventor,...
App Inventor at the White House
Apr 3, 2015 felicia's Blog
For the second year in a row, a Verizon Innovative App Challenge Best-in-Nation student team was invited to the White House Science Fair to demonstrate their mobile app development done with MIT App Inventor. This year, an all-girl high school team from Kennewick, Washington created Safe & Sound, a tool...
Scholarly Research with or about MIT App Inventor
Mar 12, 2015 josh's Blog
In addition to being a great app creation and computational thinking learning environment, MIT App Inventor is the hub of a broad network of scholarly research.
The team at MIT is happy to collaborate with a wide range of other researchers who either use MIT App Inventor as a platform...
New Version of the MIT App Inventor 2 Setup Tools for Macintosh
Feb 21, 2015 andrew's Blog
The MIT App Inventor project has just released version 2.3.0 of the setup tools for App Inventor 2. Who should use these new tools?
This new version adds additional flexibility, and fixes several issues that users have reported, and is now the standard MIT App Inventor 2 Mac Tools Installer....
App Inventor usage summary for 2014
Feb 7, 2015 hal's Blog
Here's a short report and graph showing App Inventor usage for 2014. Briefly, there was a large increase in use of AI2 and a slow decline in use of AI Classic. See report
App Inventor honored with 2015 MERLOT Classics Award
Feb 3, 2015 hal's Blog
Its exceedingly gratifying to learn that App Inventor has been honored with a 2015 Classics Award, presented by MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching) Editorial and Professional Development Services. MERLOTs area editorial boards curate and review works that they designate as Exemplary Online Materials. Each board annually...
2015 Verizon Innovative App Challenge National Winners
Feb 3, 2015 felicia's Blog
Today, the Verizon Foundation announced the 2015 Innovative App Challenge National Winners! The eight winning teams received new Samsung Galaxy tablets, prize money of $15,000 and the opportunity to work with MIT App Inventor Master Trainers to develop their winning ideas into functional mobile apps available on...
New Version of the MIT App Inventor 2 Setup Tools for Windows
Feb 3, 2015 andrew's Blog
The MIT App Inventor project has just released version 2.3.0 of the setup tools for App Inventor 2. Who should use these new tools?
This new version adds additional flexibility, and fixes several issues that users have reported, and is now the standard MIT App Inventor 2 Windows Tools Installer....
Verizon Innovative App Challenge announces 2015 Best In State Winners
Jan 7, 2015 josh's Blog
Congratulations to our collaborators from the Verizon Foundation and the Technology Student Association, and especially to the just announced Best In State winners of the 2015 Verizon Innovative App Challenge.
We're excited to learn about the great ideas coming from these winners, and look forward to sending out our...
MIT App Inventor - "A Language the Pays"
Jan 7, 2015 josh's Blog
Thanks to Jeff Cogswell and the folks at dice.com for the nice mention of MIT App Inventor as a tool worth knowing about for building Android apps!
Thanks too, to the slashdotter who put the word out further.
MIT App Inventor - now available with Chinese or Spanish Interface - More Languages to Come
Jan 6, 2015 josh's Blog
Though some of you may have noticed late in 2014, we're now making the official announcement. MIT App Inventor has been used in many countries (more than 195 at last count) for some time, but now the interface for the programming environment, found at http://ai2.appinventor.mit.edu/, is now available in...
Errors and Debugging of Blocks-Based Programming in App Inventor - a SuperUROP Project
Dec 29, 2014 benji's Blog
Hi App Inventor World! Im Benji, a Super UROP on the MIT App Inventor team. Although I do have superpowers (shhh), Super UROP is an MIT program for advanced undergraduates at the Institute to do long-term, intensive research. My research interests lie at the intersection of data science...
OSU Student Reinvents The Wheel (And Uses MIT App Inventor to Control It)
Dec 23, 2014 josh's Blog
Thanks to our friend Arta Szathmary who passed on the story of Carter Hurd, a sophomore at The Ohio State University, who built a robot with innovative transformable wheels, and used an app built with MIT App Inventor to control it from a distance, according to
Welcome Felicia Kamriani to the MIT App Inventor Team!
Dec 14, 2014 hal's Blog
The MIT App Inventor Team welcomes our newest member: Felicia Kamriani, who has joined us as Education and Business Development Associate. Felicia comes to MIT with 20 years of experience in the field of education, with roles ranging from conducting research and developing online courses at HarvardX to training educators...
China National App Inventor Contest holds final round
Nov 29, 2014 hal's Blog
On November 22, the 2014 China National App Inventor Contest for High/Middle School Students, which kicked off last June, held its final round competition at the Google office in Shanghai.
Here is a report by Kathy Deng of Google University Relations Education, China:
Dear All,
App Inventor usage surpasses 100,000 per week
Nov 17, 2014 hal's Blog
The creation of live programming in App Inventor
Aug 26, 2014 hal's Blog
Mark Friedman, who led the implementation of App Inventor at Google, has written a note on how the Google App Inventor team implemented live programming, one of the key features of the App Inventor system. See Mark's note here.
MIT/Google China Summer Workshops reach teachers from 198 schools
Aug 19, 2014 hal's Blog
App Inventor teacher workshops in South China
Jul 31, 2014 hal's Blog
Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China
July, 2014
I’m writing from an App Inventor workshop at the Shenzhen Institute of Information Technology,Shenzhen Institute of Information Technology (SZIIT), one of China’s top technical schools, where we’re running a three-day App Inventor workshop for 40 middle school and high school teachers. “We” are MIT...
Teaching App Creation Self-Study Course Open to Public
Jul 16, 2014 josh's Blog
We're very happy to announce that Teaching App Creation, a course designed for those who wish to teach others how to build apps with MIT App Inventor is now live and available for the general public. Made possible by the generous support of the Verizon Foundation, and originally built...
Share Your Stories!
Jul 16, 2014 josh's Blog
We continue to hear about more and more people using App Inventor, but can't know about or keep up with everything that's going on by ourselves. That's where you come in! Please write up a brief story of what you, your students, your company, or others you know are doing...
MIT App Inventor Well Represented @ ISTE 2014
Jul 2, 2014 carole's Blog
Last week, Los Angles Unified School District teacher Steve Zanotti and Wellesley University Professor Lyn Turback conducted a hands-on workshop at International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Conference in Atlanta. The group of approximately forty secondary teachers heard from Steve how he has been using...
Job position with MIT App Inventor
Jun 19, 2014 hal's Blog
Job Code/Title: ED001/Research SpecialistPosition
Title: Software Engineer
Effort: 100%
Term: Initial term through June 2015 with the possibility of extension based on progress and direction of the research
Summary: The MIT Center for the Mobile Learning, a joint project of the MIT Media Lab and the Computer...
2014 Technovation Challenge reaches 3500 young women
May 9, 2014 hal's Blog
From February to May of 2014, 3,500 young women from ages 10 to 23 spanning 45 countries around the globe signed up to create mobile apps to solve problems in their communities. They built prototypes using MIT App Inventor, wrote business plans, and pitched their mobile...
Join us at the 2014 MIT App Inventor Summit!
Apr 29, 2014 josh's Blog
Join us at MIT for the third annual App Inventor Summit to be held July 17 & 18, 2014. The MIT App Inventor Summit is the annual gathering of the world-wide App Inventor community. Hosted by the MIT Center for Mobile Learning and the MIT...
Creating Challenge-Worthy Apps
Apr 8, 2014 shay's Blog
Want to create challenge-worthy apps? Want to participate in the House Student App Challenge but don’t know where to start?
MIT App Inventor’s Guide to Creating Challenge-Worthy Apps! A virtual live webinar (recorded LIVE on April 7, 2014, now available for viewing)
MIT’s App...
Shay Pokress to join Project Lead the Way
Apr 5, 2014 hal's Blog
I'm writing with bittersweet emotion to announce that Shaileen (Shay) Pokress, our MIT App Inventor Director of Education, will be leaving MIT at the beginning of May to take up a position as Director of Computer Science Instruction for Project Lead The Way. Project Lead the Way is one of...
One Computer At a Time
Mar 16, 2014 jeff's Blog
MIT App Inventor is designed to be used by an individual using only one computer at a time. If you open a project on one computer and then open the same project on a second computer (or even in a second browser window) you can cause your project to become...
Time to Update the Companion
Feb 10, 2014 jeff's Blog
Back at the beginning of January I wrote to explain how we are going to reduce the number of times you have to update your MIT App Inventor software installation by distributing a Companion App with the ability to update itself. On February 11 well implement this auto-update...
First Lady Celebrates 2013 Winners of Technovation Challenge in Nigeria
Feb 10, 2014 shay's Blog
The First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and ITU Child Online Protection Champion, Dame Patience Goodluck Jonathan celebrates the winning team of the just concluded Technovation Challenge in Nigeria. She applauded the feat of these young girls during the one day youth convention organized on September 3rd, at...
Hungry Middle Schoolers Create Prize-Winning Allergy App
Feb 10, 2014 shay's Blog
ABC News Betsy Klein - December 12, 2013 When 13-year-old Samantha Hinton is unsure of the ingredients in a snack, she just doesnt eat it. Thats because Samantha is among the growing population of food allergy sufferers in the United States, and she fears a bite containing peanuts could kill...
Time to Install New Setup Tools!
Jan 7, 2014 jeff's Blog
Version 2.2 of the Mac and Windows Setup tools is yet another version! Why so many versions? And what we are doing about it?! The MIT AI2 Companion is a copy of every component of App Inventor. When you are using the companion, your blocks program is sent over to...
Announcing the Bug finding contest winners
Jan 6, 2014 hal's Blog
Its with pleasure that I can announce the results of Decembers App Inventor Bug Finding contest. The results were so strong that we decided to award two first-place prizes. The winners are Arjun Santhoshkumar and Taifun Br. Arjun and Taifun worked hard to ferret out bugs, and they each identified...
H***app***y New Year
Dec 31, 2013 hal's Blog
Happy New Year! Thanks you for your support for App Inventor and for your participation on these forums. We at MIT have closed out a great year: We met our major goal of launching App Inventor 2 before the end of 2013, and we're eagerly watching usage grow. More than...
Christmas Gift: Merry Christmas and H*app*y Holidays
Dec 21, 2013 hal's Blog
Here's a Christmas present to the App Inventor community, from MIT App Inventor team members Fu-Ming Shi and Wehua Li. Christmas Yo Yo Fun is an App Inventor creation that you can download for free from the Google Play store. It lets anyone create Christmas cards by...
The New App Inventor is Coming: Hunt bugs in App Inventor 2 and win prizes!
Nov 22, 2013 hal's Blog
Added December 3: Thank you! The contest is over and there were lots of great entries. We'll try to announce the winners next week. Were continuing to make progress on the launch of the new App Inventor system (pre-release name is App Inventor 2), where the entire system runs in...
Upgrading Java for AI1 Mac users on Mavericks
Oct 27, 2013 hal's Blog
If you are using AI1 ("Classic") on a Mac, you should upgrade to Java 7 if you install Mavericks (MacOS 10.9). How to update Java in MacOS Mavericks (10.9) This information does not apply to App Inventor 2 users, unless you are also building your own version of App...
Hour of Code with App Inventor
Oct 6, 2013 shay's Blog
In preparation for the first Hour of Code TM we developed new tutorials in the form of short, user-friendly videos that anyone can follow to build their first mobile apps. The Hour of Code is nationwide initiative by Computer Science Education Week and...
URBAN Txt Students Using App Inventor
Aug 30, 2013 joanie's Blog
The URBAN TxT (urban Teens eXploring Technology) program seeks inner-city south L.A. students from 7th to 11th grade with an interest in technology and exploring more about. Many of these kids have parents who didn't attend college or even graduate high school. The URBAN TxT program has been incredibly successful....
App Inventor Boot Camp in Western Mass
Aug 26, 2013 joanie's Blog
App Inventor Boot Camp was a summer professional development experience for teachers to learn MIT App Inventor, a free visual blocks-based programming system for Android mobile devices that can be used to teach computer science concepts through the creative design of apps for smartphones and mobile devices. In this hands-on...
Want to Contribute to App Inventor’s Educational Resources?
Aug 9, 2013 joanie's Blog
We'd love to share your tutorials or other resources with the App Inventor community. To get started creating your own tutorials, check out the How To Create Your Own Tutorial page. If you'd like to create a Concept Card, use our Concept Card template. For these and...
Chicago Summer of Learning features App Inventor
Jul 16, 2013 joanie's Blog
This summer of 2013, thousands of young Chicagoans will continue learning while school is out, thanks to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuels citywide Chicago Summer of Learning initiative, the largest coordinated summer learning effort in the country. Summer of Learning will specifically focus learning activities around science, technology, engineering,...
Democratizing the mobile world with MIT App Inventor
Jul 11, 2013 leo's Blog
Built with the mission to democratize app creation for and by all, MIT App Inventor is a graphical tool that turns media consumers into active and critical participants of the mobile world.
As portable devices become ubiquitous, mobile apps are the new Web. Literally bringing data and connectivity to...
App Inventor featured in CSTA Voice
Jun 25, 2013 shay's Blog
Creative Engagement with Technology: There's an App for That!
I recently teamed up with CS teacher Kristin Violette to write an article for the July issue of CSTA Voice. In the article we chronicle how Kristin's students at Newtown High School in Connecticut have used...
$200K Keck Grant for Appinventor.org
Apr 9, 2013 josh's Blog
David Wolber and the University of San Francisco received a $200,000 grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation to launch the Democratize Computing Lab at USF . The Labs mission is to break down the programmer divide and radically broaden and diversify the pool of software creators. The Lab...
Join the App Inventor Community Gallery!
Apr 9, 2013 shay's Blog
The App Inventor Gallery is now open to the world at gallery.appinventor.mit.edu. Show off your apps. Find apps for remixing. Learn from others and collaborate! The gallery is an open-source app store, a collaborative development environment, and a peer-to-peer learning studio, all in one. Teachers, students,...
Computer Science Educators embrace App Inventor at SIGCSE
Mar 28, 2013 shay's Blog
Ahh, Denver in March: Sunny and 60 on Thursday, blizzard on Saturday... but we had a blast!
I am happy to report that the 44th annual meeting of the Special Interest Group in Computer Science Education (SIGCSE) was a wonderful success, and that App Inventor was well represented by educators...
Meet the MIT App Inventor Training Corps
Mar 19, 2013 josh's Blog
Back Row, left to right: Arta Szathmary, Kelly Powers, Shaileen Pokress, Kristin Violette, Barbara Ericson; Front Row: Krishnendu Roy, Josh Sheldon, Mark Sherman, William Smith
This past Friday and Saturday, at the MIT Media Lab, I had...
MIT CML at Mobile World Congress
Mar 13, 2013 shay's Blog
Leo Burd and I have recovered from jetlag and are ready to report on our trip to the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona February 25-28. We went to MWC to represent the MIT Center for Mobile Learning as part of the unX network, a partnership with CSEV, UNED, Telefnica,...
Preliminary Report from World Mobile Congress
Feb 28, 2013 leo's Blog
It's a busy time here for the App Inventor crew! CML staff Shay and Leo are currently in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress, presenting on unX. Created through a partnership between MIT, UNED, Santander, Telefnica and CSEV, unX is the first online learning portal (MOOC) specifically created to foster entrepreneurship...
Import Information about Java and App Inventor
Feb 6, 2013 jeff's Blog
If you are running Java 6 on a Macintosh, you should run Apple's latest software update 12 released February 1st. If you have been running Java 7 you may get a notice when opening the Blocks Editor that asks you to update Java. You must run this update to use...
First App Inventor Contest: Winners Announced!
Jan 7, 2013 shay's Blog
The 2012 App Inventor Contest had 125 submissions in four categories: K-8, High School, College/University, and Open. Google Nexus 7 Tablets are awarded to the 1st place winners, with App Inventor books given for second place. Participants included students as young as third grade, college students, hobbyists, professional developers,...
App Inventor Goes Wireless!
Dec 12, 2012 andrew's Blog
We are very excited to be able to announce that... Starting with todays release of MIT App Inventor, v132, you no longer need a USB cable to connect your phone to your computer. We have added the option to connect the phone to the computer wirelessly. Not only does this...
NEW RELEASE brings sprite flinging, wifi texting, and more!
Nov 16, 2012 shay's Blog
We have great news: the new release of App Inventor is now live, and contains some exciting new functionality. Be sure to read the release notes for the entire list of updates. Here are the highlights:
- Sprites and Canvas can now respond to Fling, TouchDown, and TouchUp gestures....
App Inventor Community Gallery from UMass-Lowell & USF Seeks More Beta Testers
Oct 19, 2012 andrew's Blog
Our friends and co-developers of the App Inventor Community Gallery have been hard at work and are seeking more beta testers to load test, test the usability, and as importantly, to populate the Gallery with a range of interesting apps. The App Inventor Community Gallery is a site for...
New Release: Screen arrangements, resizable video, and more
Sep 13, 2012 shay's Blog
Announcing the newest App Inventor release! Version 129 is now live. In addition to a few bug fixes and minor User Interface improvements, here are the exciting new features:
- Resize-able and Full Screen Video support. You can now resize an existing Video Player component from the blocks editor. In Android...
App Inventor Summit Archive Now Available
Aug 30, 2012 shay's Blog
The MIT Center for Mobile Learning hosted a two-day summit in Cambridge, MA on July 13-14 ,2012. This meeting allowed time for the 80 attendees to form small working groups to develop strategic plans to guide the future of the App Inventor project. Also, invited presenters shared the work they...
Ed Week features App Inventor as tool for engaging students
Jun 14, 2012 shay's Blog
Check it out: Ed Week ran a feature article on App Inventor and the power of teaching students how to build mobile apps. Many excellent programs are described in the article, including Youth APPLab, Technovation, Youth Radio, and others. My favorite quote is from an eighth...
Welcome to the new App Inventor website!
Jun 1, 2012 shay's Blog
Hello again, After a bit of a hiatus, this blog is back in action. I was waiting to post a new entry until we had successfully rolled out the NEW WEBSITE! Now that it's here, I'd like to draw your attention to a few things. The App Inventor website hosted...
App Inventor helping to bridge gap in numbers of CS Majors
Apr 30, 2012 shay's Blog
Hello Inventors, One of our main goals at the MIT Center for Mobile Learning is to encourage greater participation in computing from a wider and more varied assortment of people. App Inventor does this by inherently fostering personal creativity with technology. I was pleased to see App Inventor mentioned in...
Please help up test the new site for sharing App Inventor projects
Apr 5, 2012 hal's Blog
Ever since App Inventor was launched, there have been many requests for a site where people can exhibit and share their App Inventor work. MIT and University of Massachusetts at Lowell are collaborating on creating such a Gallery site, which we hope to launch later this year.
Right now, we...
Hog Wild for App Inventor!
Mar 23, 2012 shay's Blog
Hello App Inventors, Things are moving right along here at the MIT Center for Mobile Learning. The community continues to grow and we have now topped the 90,000 mark for the number unique accounts on the App Inventor service! We have several initiatives underway to bring you new materials and...
App Inventor Community continues to grow!
Mar 15, 2012 shay's Blog
Hello App Inventor Educators! My name is Shaileen Pokress (“Shay”). I have just gotten started in my new position as Education Community Manager at the MIT Center for Mobile Learning. I am working with the App Inventor Team to facilitate sharing of ideas and materials in support of using App...
Announcing: MIT App Inventor Open Beta Preview
Mar 4, 2012 hal's Blog
The MIT Center for Mobile Learning is delighted to announce that we’re meeting our goal of making MIT App Inventor available as a public service in the first quarter of 2012.
For the past two months, we have been conducting a closed test of the system for an increasing number...
MIT App Inventor mid-January status update
Jan 21, 2012 hal's Blog
It's been three months since we started work on App Inventor at the MIT Center for Mobile Learning and three weeks since Google's public service went offline. Here's brief progress report on the replacement public service we'll be deploying at MIT.
So far (knock on wood) our development effort is...
Google and MIT announce open sourcing of the App Inventor code
Jan 20, 2012 hal's Blog
Google and MIT are pleased to announce the initial free and open-source release from Google of the App Inventor source code at http://code.google.com/p/app-inventor-releases/.
There's little supporting documentation yet, and we’re not accepting contributions to the code now. That will happen later, after the MIT Center of Mobile Learning opens...
Help test the MIT prototype App Inventor Service
Dec 6, 2011 hal's Blog
The Center for Mobile Learning is planning to deploy a public App Inventor service some time in the first quarter of 2012, to replace the service that Google will be turning off at the end of December. We've just launched an experimental prototype, and we're looking for people to...
Running your own App Inventor service
Nov 30, 2011 andrew's Blog
Starting today, the Center for Mobile Learning is distributing Java Archive (JAR) files that let people run their own versions of App Inventor on Google App Engine.
We're still planning to deploy a public App Inventor service some time in the first quarter of 2012, to replace the service...
Development Starts at MIT
Nov 8, 2011 hal's Blog
I’m happy to use this first post in our App Inventor Development Blog to announce that MIT work on App Inventor is underway, and even happier to introduce Andrew McKinney as our newly hired technical lead for the Center and for App Inventor development. Andrew has a 20-year history of...
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