Hal Abelson on Google's "App Inventor for Android"

14 July 2010 update - see also this post about the launch of App Inventor as a publicly available beta product.

Hal Varian is not the only academic (nor Hal...) seconded to Google. Hal Abelson is an eminent professor of computer science and engineering at MIT, and a very influential figure in the field. He was founding director of Creative Commons and of the Free Software Foundation. Over the last year he has been working on secondment to Google on a project about using the Android Open Source operating system as platform for learning computer science. He now reports on this in the Google Research Blog. This excerpt is about as succinct a summary as you will find of the "architectural shift" that is taking place:

"Mobile applications are triggering a fundamental shift in the way people experience computing and use mobile phones. Ten years ago, people "went to the computer" to perform tasks and access the Internet, and they used a cell phone only to make calls. Today, smartphones let us carry computing with us, have become central to servicing our communication and information needs, and have made the web part of all that we do. Ten years ago, people's use of computing was largely dissociated from real life. With the ubiquity of social networking, online and offline life are becoming fused."

Abelson goes on to announce App Inventor for Android, which "lets people assemble Android applications by arranging 'components' using a graphical drag-and-drop-interface", and which will be trialled with students in a group of around a dozen universities (all in the US bar the University of Queensland) in Autumn 2009. The rationale for the development of App Inventor for Android is that the architectural shift needs to be matched by a shift in the computer science curriculum "to make it more about people and their interactions with others and with the world around them", so that people "can engage the world of mobile services and applications as creators, not just consumers".

Abelson concludes:

"Through this work, we hope to do the following:

• make mobile application development accessible to anyone;
• enhance introductory learning experiences in computing through the vehicle of Android’s open platform;
• encourage a community of faculty and students to share material and ideas for teaching and exploring."

For me, this development raises several interesting issues:

1. Where are UK (on Indian, for that matter) Universities in developments of this kind? Are they not involved because there have been no opportunities, or because they've responded to calls and failed?

2. Openness (of approach, software etc) as a key vehicle to support innovation. It is hard to see an equivalent initiative being taken using the software components that the iPhone relies on.

3. Users as creators of applications. Note the broadening of emphasis from users as creators of content to users as creators of tools.

Comments

[Kevin McDonagh]

Thanks for the interesting names to follow. In related Android news, Novoda has been working closely with JISC; a funding body for IT/University partnerships promoting technological innovation in the UK. We have been helping identify interesting opportunities for Android but have found University uptake to be relatively slow. One interesting project we are currently working on is a form based application which is about to help a team of vets conduct medical surveys across 400 Cows & in over 50 farms in Tanzania! This Application has been developed as a partnership with the Royal Veterinary college, Novoda, Bloomsbury Colleges, JISC, and the London Knowledge Lab.

Please contact me and we could chat more about it, I and would love to hear of any more of Android developments within Academia.

[Simon Thompson]

UK Academia has not done this, but UK research has. Have a look at http://btrules.com

It's not Android, but it is open, graphical and community orientated.