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Phenomenal tool for teaching understanding, basics, troubleshooting and persistence of programming. This is a great starter program for app building. If students have familiarity with Scratch they'll advance faster with MIT App Inventor. If students have previous programming experience through Khan or Code Academy or Studio,code.org (or with Java or Javascript of other types of programming) they will produce faster and more easily in MIT App Inventor. As an example, students can build a basic tic, tac, toe game from video and written tutorial instructions but then plan, design, and develop and more robust version. This is a great next step to basic programming skills, and a good first step for beginners. Student new to programming will exceed their own expectations after watching some tutorial videos on working with MIT App Inventor and using video tutorials (along with the written counterpart) to complete a project. MIT App Inevetor is a wonderful scaffolding tool for programming. Teachers can choose the level for students or let them challenge themselves by providing already created tutorials or new projects to work on from scratch (with no tutorial). Teachers should guide students through understanding the important elements in app creation (i.e. objective, reward, including instructions, visual experience, tactile experience, asthetics, organization, etc.) As an example, students can build a basic tic, tac, toe game from video and written tutorial instructions but then plan, design, and develop and more robust version. The emulator is necessary to see you working in app in progress, to beta test, and to use the final product. MIT App Inventor includes three types of emulators (that allow you to see your game/project in real time): AI (or AI2) Companion which runs on Android phones; the computer based emulator, and a USB connection type. We used the first two types exclusively in our program. Please note: in order to run the AI/AI2 Companion it is necessary to have all devices connected over the same WiFI (which is addessed in the instruction on the website). Students and teachers alike will learn, benefit and have fun working with MIT App Inventor. Teacher intermediate programming background required.

This is the absolute best of the best for introductory programming on the middle or high school level. The tools are visual, but also carry references the programming language. I can't recommend this highly enough.

The biggest strength of MIT App Inventor 2 is that the simplest app you can write with it happens to be incredibly fun and to have a big "wow" factor. Of all the coding tools I've used, App Inventor provides the easiest way to take advantage of phone hardware. With just a few blocks of code, students can get their phones or tablets to do things when they shake them (i.e. when the accelerometer senses a shaking movement). And, while it might take seven or eight clicks and drags of coding to get the phone to display a message on its screen, it only takes three or four clicks and drags to get the phone to use its text-to-speech engine to actually say a message aloud. Students love it, and it opens the door to all kinds of creative inventions, including apps that can help people who might have a hard time reading or seeing text. Can I recommend App Inventor at this point, though? No. Unlike other block-based coding platforms like Scratch or Tynker, App Inventor forces students to switch back and forth between a "Designer" screen and a "Blocks" screen just to write the code. To test the code to see what they're actually doing, students need to run a separate emulator program or connect an Android phone or tablet and run the code on this separate device. That's a lot of juggling for a student who's trying to learn coding. It's also an obstacle to anyone trying to create or find a simple introductory-level tutorial that might include screenshots or step-by-step directions. Many tutorials exist, and they are quite thoughtful, but they are not simple or intuitive. My students and I also intermittently experienced technical difficulties using the wireless "connect companion" feature for live testing. The App Inventor forum wasn't able to help us find a solution. They ultimately recommended using the emulator, which at the time of my writing gets mixed reviews from other teachers writing Graphite field notes.