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Android 1: Seminar Backgroundfor King Naresuan University

Kirk Scott

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• 1.1 Introduction• 1.2 Who Is the Audience?• 1.3 The Example App• 1.4 Summary

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1.1 Introduction

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• This is a brief outline of the seminar on Android apps for education at King Naresuan University

• Day 1• Morning: An introduction to Android apps• Afternoon: A Java program to help make an

Android app

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• Day 2• Morning: Google Play and publishing Android

apps• Afternoon: Google Play for Education

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• Each of the four sessions will be broken down into 3 PowerPoint presentations on different topics

• These PowerPoint presentations will last approximately 45 minutes, leaving time for translation, questions, etc.

• The seminar will consist of a total of 12 separate presentations

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• There are two basic goals to the seminar:• Give information on the creation of a simple,

educational Android app• Provide general information on how apps are

sold and distributed, and Google’s initiative for apps in education

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• The goal of the initial sets of overheads:• Introduce the sample app• Give some general background on Android

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1.2 Who Is the Audience?

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• This seminar has been designed for students of education who are interested in educational technology

• Android apps are based on the Java programming language

• The assumption is made that the audience does not know how to program

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• No attempt will be made to cover the topic of programming

• Instead, the goal is to discuss app development to the extent possible without programming

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• Someone who is specializing in educational technology should find the first day’s presentations of particular interest

• Such a person would be familiar with and comfortable with installing and using computer applications and development packages

• The overheads will contain information that would allow those people to support teachers who want to make an educational app

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• Someone who is not specializing in educational technology will find the first day to be background information

• The result may simply be to draw the conclusion that you will need the help of an educational technologist to accomplish these things

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• The second day will be more general information

• An educational technologist would be interested in the technical aspects

• A regular teacher would be interested in the capabilities that are being supported by Google and Android

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1.3 The Example App

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• The first day of the seminar will be centered around a flashcard app

• The app consists of a series of screens which show questions and pictures

• The user can press buttons to see the answers and hear sound associated with the question

• The user navigates from screen to screen by pressing buttons

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• Because a picture is worth a thousand words, the complete sequence of screens is shown on the following overhead

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• Needless to say, this app is very simple in concept

• It would be useful in educational situations where memorization is the goal

• All that’s necessary is to provide suitable content

• Students would be motivated to use it because it is interactive and works on a portable device

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• The basic framework, or skeleton for the app is the programming

• That work is complete• The text, pictures, and sound, the contents of

the app, are known as resources

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• The goal is to show how to use the finished program framework for the app and include personalized content in it

• Even though providing the resources isn’t programming, it turns out that there is lots of background knowledge needed in order to do even this

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• The idea is that a classroom teacher may have ideas about content and would be able to assemble the necessary materials

• Someone skilled in educational technology could then help them put that content into the sample application framework

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• What the programming defines is the logic of the progression through the flashcards

• In other words, what happens when you click different buttons, and where are the resources displayed in the flashcards?

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• The content consists of the text, pictures, and sound that are included

• In short, without programming skills, you have to accept a rigid sample app which effectively does only one thing

• But providing content for this can be a creative and useful activity

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• It is not hard to see how the flashcard app could be expanded and improved in many different ways

• However, this can’t be accomplished without programming skills

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1.4 Summary

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• The goal of this seminar is to give students of educational technology and students of education some background in Android app development

• With a sufficient level of technical skill, it should be possible to populate the sample flashcard app with unique, subject-specific content

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• It should also be possible to get an idea of the broad scope of Android as it might be used in education

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The End