Scenario

Each year in Dr. Joyner’s environmental studies course, student teams give class presentations on a current environmental issue. This semester, Jacob suggests to his group that they build a game for mobile devices as the presentation on their topic, fracking. He has lately been using a tool that he says is simple enough for nontechnical users to create interesting mobile apps. The group mentions that there are several popular mobile platforms, and they point out that some students in the class don’t have smartphones at all. Jacob assures them that the application development tool will produce apps for both iOS and Android devices, and he proposes that they structure the game so only one device per team will be needed.

Each group will “play” various characters in a fracking scenario: a rep from the energy company, a landowner with property for drilling, an environmentalist, and others. The game will assign roles and define each character, sending targeted text messages to each character that provide info that no one else has. As the group gets started, they find that even though the tool has a limited number of design options and functions, they can tailor the game exactly the way they believe will most clearly teach other students about fracking. Each member of the group brings research, explanations, and messages relating to the various characters. Jacob demonstrates the tool by dragging an empty text message graphic into the app they are building, and Lindsay enters information about the environmentalist. They also include visuals, such as a map showing the area to be drilled and an employment graph for the economically hard-hit area—both of which will update to reflect the possible environmental or economic impact of action taken by players.

The day the class plays Tracking Fracking, Jacob’s team serves as roving troubleshooters. Jacob listens as a “Neighbor of the Landowner” gets a message urging him to “begin a suit against the energy company.” At the next table, a mayor is trying to calm public distress from a newspaper article entitled, “Locals Claim Fire Runs from Their Faucets.” The reporter at a third table is busy using the smartphone to record interviews with each of the players. As the teams play, individual members embrace their roles and begin to frame their arguments based on messages they receive about how fracking works, what impact it has on the economy, and how it affects the environment.

1. What is it?

Growing numbers of faculty in numerous disciplines are incorporating mobile learning into their teaching strategies. But sometimes the search for just the right mobile app for a particular learning activity is fruitless. Given the potentially high cost of custom app development, some instructors have begun employing tools that allow nontechnical users to build mobile apps without having to write code—or at least without having to write much code. While professional developers use a vast array of sophisticated tools to turn out their mobile apps, the low-cost development tools designed for the layman provide a simple graphical interface with drag-and-drop utility that gives the designer access to a library of functions. While some of these new app development tools work best for users with a basic understanding of programming, others require no coding knowledge at all.

2. How does it work?

Although they vary in design and utility, these development platforms typically provide a basic structure into which a user can drop modules and content. Users choose from the available templates and menus, perhaps selecting a function that retrieves the user’s location from the phone’s GPS or one that will enable a specific news feed. With each choice, the development software adds a chunk of code to the app. When all choices have been made, the user can click to test the results with a built-in emulator. Because not all newly built applications run as expected the first time, the development environment might offer options such as source code editing, debugging, and testing tools to help ensure that the final product functions as intended. Some tools create apps for just one operating system, such as iOS or Android, while other tools generate and test code for multiple platforms.

3. Who’s doing it?

While not everyone is ready to build mobile applications, some students and faculty members are embracing the opportunity. College students from the University of South Carolina, for example, have leveraged their skills with mobile development tools to create their own company, 52apps. The students intend to build one new mobile app each week—a total of 52 per year—enabling them to increase their knowledge of app design and construction by immersing themselves in the process. The company, which emerged from the campus business incubator program, is currently making apps for the iPhone and iPad, but the plan is to branch out into other types of devices. One product, a note-taking program called SmartNote, already boasts more than a half million downloads. Meanwhile, at the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus, the ARIS development tool is being used to create location-based educational games, interactive narratives, and field data-collection activities.

Secondary students in numerous after-school programs across the United States are also using these tools to create their own mobile apps. In one such program, Technovation, girls work with female technology entrepreneurs in California, Massachusetts, and New York to build mobile apps using AppInventor. The 10-week program ends with teams pitching their apps in a national competition where one app will be selected for release on Google Play.

4. Why is it significant?

While many students and faculty own and carry smartphones, their use in the classroom has been largely limited to custom-built applications or those available from commercial developers. Professionally built custom apps generally require specialized programming resources, and commercial apps often focus on entertainment, business, or personal utility rather than on education. Given the opportunities that mobile learning provides—such as increased engagement, greater access to information and resources, and improved communication—simple, easy-to-use app development tools could jumpstart the use of mobile devices in coursework by enabling instructors (or students) to create applications that truly meet learners’ needs. This learning content could then be regularly updated by experts in their fields. Tools that make mobile app development simpler could open up opportunities for hands-on, collaborative learning experiences in the classroom and promote field research in testing and improving the newly built applications.

5. What are the downsides?

Because these app development tools offer a relatively limited set of templates and functions, the apps that emerge could be remarkably similar in design and functionality, and that level of homogeneity might detract from the sense that each application was uniquely developed to suit a particular need. Although these development tools might offer commercial opportunities for apps created by sophisticated users, less experienced users might find it much more challenging to market their apps, depending on the online marketplace they target. Faculty and students may find it relatively easy to place their creations in the Android Market, for example, whereas the Apple App Store will only distribute those approved by Apple reviewers. Meanwhile, some observers argue that the marketplace is already glutted with mobile applications. They point out that among the hundreds of thousands of options available, most needs must have been addressed already. The app market is so robust, in fact, that even when the perfect app for a specified educational purpose is created, customers might not be able to locate it among the 200 similar apps that all purport to do the same thing. Even with these new tools, some faculty will have difficulty building mobile apps that meet their particular needs, and some of these instructors will likely offload the development work to teaching assistants. Regardless, newcomers to the field may not be prepared for complications of product development that include a lack of interface standards, a need for testing to ensure quality control, and the tedious matter of app maintenance—all burdens that are likely to fall to the builder of an application.

6. Where is it going?

As app development becomes a viable option for more users, it could open the way to increased use of mobile technology in the classroom. The result could be improved communication between instructor and student as students gain anywhere/anytime access to their course materials. These tools may also promote more customized apps for specialized study areas as faculty build and make these apps available to the wider academic community. Colleges and universities might offer workshops in disciplines other than IT for students who want to learn how to use these development platforms and could host app development competitions to spur student interest. Some institutions already work with the major marketplaces, streamlining the process of submission for developers on campus, and support efforts of this type are likely to become more common. As apps created with these tools make their way into the market, the major mobile stores will need to develop tools for better online discovery so that customers can find the apps they want and more easily identify best-of-breed options.

7. What are the implications for teaching and
learning?

Where student assignments revolve around building a group project, an application development tool can be a useful pedagogical device, offering faculty the opportunity to build mobile apps fashioned to meet immediate needs. At the same time, they present student teams with the possibility of creating apps for a course-related purpose. Such efforts foster creativity as they highlight collaboration and peer evaluation. But they could, in fact, do considerably more. The rapid expansion of the mobile app market offers new career possibilities for students who use these tools to build viable commercial products. The benefits can be considerably greater than just earning a resume bullet. In fact, in dozens of U.S. colleges and universities with business incubator programs, mobile apps are already being designed and built by student startups.

September 2012

© 2012 EDUCAUSE
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.
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