App Inventor and Internet of Things Workshop (IoT) held at IFSC

15/05/2019 13:25

Students of the 7th. grade of Electronic Technician integrated course of Instituto Federal de Santa Catarina (IFSC) – Campus Florianópolis learned how to develop an IoT app with App Inventor.

In a workshop taught by student Michel Miola, under the supervision of IFSC professor Fernando Pacheco, students learned to implement an app integrated with an IoT device that receives data from temperature and humidity sensors and triggers visual and audible alarms.

The implementation of the components, the IoT server and the instructional material are results of the final project of the student of Information Systems Michel Miola.

Software components and material will be available for download on the Computação na Escola website.

Closing Event of the Young Programming Tutors 2018 Project

18/12/2018 10:51

The Project Young Programming Tutors 2018, coordinated by the initiative Computação na Escola/INCoD/INE/UFSC and realized at the school Escola Básica Almirante Carvalhal, was closed with an event held at the headquarters of the sponsoring company Involves Tecnologia e Inovação.

During the event, Prof. Jean Hauck of the initative Computação na Escola presented the main results achieved by the project:

  • Training of Young Tutors and volunteer Mentors
  • Apps Programming Workshops for middle school students, conducted by the volunteer Mentors and supported by Young Tutors, teaching computing to more than 60 school students
  • Training and mentoring of Young Tutors learning how to develop their own apps in order to resolve problems in their community
  • Developing an instructional unit specific for app development, by teaching, in addition to computing, concepts of design thinking and UX/UI design

The Young Tutors presented the apps they developed during the project:

  • Achei seu Emprego : developed by Maiza Elizabeth Machado and Vyviane Pimentel da S. Costa
  • AppPhone: developed by Gabriel Marques da Silva and Liz Furtado Domingues
  • InfoCarvalhal: developed by Guilherme Cadona da Silva and João Vitor D. de Andrade
  • FloripaPraias: developed by Darwin Wogt de Oliveira and Guilherme Carminatti
  • HealthyPlants: developed by Maria Eduarda da S. Cruz and Manuela Egerland Bueno

More details about the apps: https://computacaonaescola.ufsc.br/aplicativos-desenvolvidos-no-projeto-jovens-tutores-2018/

The project was made possible by the financial support of Involves Tecnologia e Inovação, which also enabled its employees to participate as volunteer Mentors.

Likewise, the participation and involvement of the teachers and the administration of the Escola Básica Almirante Carvalhal were fundamental for the success of the project.

Companies/organizations interested in sponsoring other projects of Young Programming Tutors can contact the initiative Computação na Escola via telephone (48) 3721-7380 / (48) 3721-4715 or email: computacaonaescola @ incod.ufsc.br

Apps developed in the Young Tutors 2018 project

10/12/2018 14:46

As a result of the Young Programming Tutors 2018 , students of the 8th and 9th years of Almirante Carvalhal Elementary School have learned to develop mobile applications with App Inventor, applying concepts of Design Thinking , interface/UX design and programming.

Assisted by professors and researchers of the Computação na Escola and with support of professional volunteers of the company Involves Tecnologia , the Young Tutors developed their own apps, seeking to solve problems in their local community. In addition to learning computer concepts by programming apps, Young Tutors have also developed important 21st century skills such as creativity and innovation, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration.

Find more information about the developed apps:

App: Achei o seu Emprego

The app “Achei o seu Emprego” helps find a job. Companies can register their job opportunities and interested can look for job opportunities.

Download Google Play: https://goo.gl/9wzffC

Download App Inventor project:  Arquivo AIA

Developed by: Maiza Elizabeth Machado and Vyviane Pimentel da Silva Costa – students of 9th grade at Escola Básica Almirante Carvalhal

App: HealthyPlants

The app provides important information to help taking care of plants at home.

Download at Google Play: https://goo.gl/JZkG71

Download App Inventor source-code: Arquivo AIA

Developed By: Maria Eduarda da Silva Cruz e Manuela Egerland Bueno – students of the 9th year of Almirante Carvalhal Elementary School

App: AppPhone

The AppPhone helps you find important phone numbers for emergencies.

Download at Google Play: https://goo.gl/iH4GUU

Download App Inventor source-code: Arquivo AIA

Developed By: Liz Furtado Domingues e Gabriel Marques da Silva – students of the 8th year of Almirante Carvalhal Elementary School

App: FloripaPraias

The app presents information about beaches in Florianópolis like water quality, access, trails, etc.

Download at Google Play: https://goo.gl/69K1TW

Download App Inventor source-code: Arquivo AIA

Developed by: Darwin Wogt de Oliveira (8th) e Guilherme Carminatti (9th) students of Almirante Carvalhal Elementary School

App: InfoCarvalhal

The App presents useful information about the Almirante Carvalhal Elementary School: classes, students, schedules and teachers

Download at Google Play: https://goo.gl/WnLct1

Download App Inventor source-code:Arquivo AIA

Developed by: Guilherme Cadona da Silva e João Vitor Domingues de Andrade – students of the 8th year of Almirante Carvalhal Elementary School

This project is being coordinated by the Computação na Escola Initiative – INCoD/INE/CTC/UFSC, sponsored by Involves Tecnologia e Inovação , a software company based in Florianópolis/SC – Brazil.

Companies/organizations interested in sponsoring other Young Tutors projects can contact the Computação na Escola initiative: Telephones: +55 48 3721-7380 / +55 48 3721-4715 or via email: computacaonaescola@incod.ufsc.br

Young Tutors receive training on app development

01/12/2018 14:32

The students of the 2018 Youth Programming Tutors project are being trained for app development at the Escola Básica Almirante Carvalhal .


During this hands-on training, Young Tutors learn about the process of developing apps with App Inventor, software engineering practices, Design Thinking and UI design, and apply these concepts directly developing their own apps in order to solve real-world problems in their community.

The trainings are given by the team of the Computação na Escola/INCoD of the Department of Informatics and Statistics/UFSC with the support of Volunteer Mentors of the sponsor company Involves Technology and Innovation.

Companies/organizations interested in sponsoring other projects of Young Tutors please contact the Computing in School initiative:

Phones: (48) 3721-7380 /(48) 3721-4715  or email: computacaonaescola@incod.ufsc.br

Our awesome volunteer mentors!

27/11/2018 14:54

A BIG THANK YOU to all volunteer mentors from Involves Tecnologia e Inovação, who were involved in the project Young Programming Tutors of the initivative Computing in School/INCoD/INE/UFSC. Sharing your knowledge and work experience was essential.

You are awesome!

Anderson Pereira, Daniela Silveira, Diogo Viana, Fernando Vasconcellos, Gabriel Werlich, Luana Viergutz, Neri Burato, Paulo Martins, Rafael Haviaras, Rodrigo Gomes

More about the project here.

Apps Programming Workshops at Escola Almirante Carvalhal

12/11/2018 14:29

More than 50 elementary school students from Almirante Carvalhal Elementary School have had the opportunity to participate in an app programming workshop.

As part of the Young Tutors 2018 project activities, mobile application programming workshops for elementary school students are being applied at Almirante Carvalhal Elementary School  by Young Tutors in conjunction with Volunteer Mentors, supported by members of the Computação na Escola and the school’s Educational Technology teachers.

At these three-hour-long workshops, participating students learn how to develop an app “Encontre-me” that lets the user share the his/her location. Participants have the opportunity to first get in touch with mobile programming, learn programming concepts and computational thinking, and leave the workshop taking their first app home!

These workshops are part of the 2018 Youung Tutors project, coordinated by the initiative Computação na Escola / INCoD / INE / UFSC and sponsored by the company Involves Technologia e Inovação. Aiming at teaching computing in elementary education in Brazilian schools, the objective of the project is to train Young Tutors (elementary students) and Volunteer Mentors (IT professionals) to program mobile applications. These Young Tutors and Volunteer Mentors are supporting the teaching of computing in public schools with the goal of reaching more students. The project also contributes to the training of Young Tutors in the area of ​​computing, providing learning and contact with professionals of the area, bringing practical experience to the participants.

Companies / organizations interested in sponsoring other projects of Young Tutors can contact the Computing in School initiative by phone (48) 3721-7380 / (48) 3721-4715 or via email: computacaonaescola@incod.ufsc.br

Game SplashCode

12/11/2018 14:25

SplashCode is a low-budget board game to reinforce the teaching of basic algorithms and programming concepts.

Core concepts: Algorithms and Programming

Educational stage: Middle school

The goal of the game SplashCode is to demonstrate algorithm and programming concepts as part of computational thinking. After playing the game school students will be able to:

  • Decompose the steps needed to solve a problem in a precise sequence of instructions.
  • Recognize that an algorithm is a set of step-by-step instructions to complete tasks.

Game material:

The game was developed in a systematic way following an instructional design process, and applied and evaluated in a Brazilian public middle school. First results indicate that the game can have a positive impact on motivation, user experience, and student learning, as well as contribute positively to social interaction, relevance and fun, providing a pleasant, playful, efficient and effective learning experience. The game was also evaluated very positively regarding usability facilitating understanding.

For comments, future game release suggestions, content updates/corrections, and general information, please contact us at computacaonaescola@incod.ufsc.br.

More information: C. Gresse von Wangenheim, G. Araújo e Silva de Medeiros,, R. Missfeldt Filho, G. Petri, F. da Cruz Pinheiro, M. N. F. Ferreira, J. C. R. Hauck. SplashCode– A Board Game for Learning an Understanding of Algorithms in Middle School. Informatics in Education, accepted for publication, 2019.

The game is available under the Creative Commons licence for non-commerical use.

Training of Young Tutors Volunteer Mentors

27/08/2018 14:17

Volunteer Mentors and Young Tutors of the Young Programming Tutors 2018 edition were received by the Computação na Escola Team in the Department of Informatics and Statistics/CTC/UFSC for an afternoon of training and integration. This is one of the first steps in the training of Young Tutors to support and disseminate computer learning in the school where they study.

In this training, ten students from Almirante Carvalhal Elementary School , selected as Young Tutors and eight Volunteer Mentors from the sponsoring company Involves Tecnologia e Inovação , participated in an afternoon of training with technical and pedagogical content. Also participating were the school’s Educational Technology teacher, who accompanies the students in the project and other teachers and students involved.

During this initial training the participants learned basic concepts of computational thinking, as well as making a first App with App Inventor.

The project is being coordinated by the Computação na Escola/INCoD/INE/UFSC, dedicated to providing all students of Basic Education with the opportunity to learn computing. This project is being sponsored by Involves Tecnologia e Inovação, a software company based in Florianópolis/SC.

Companies/organizations interested in sponsoring other projects of Young Tutors may contact the Computing in School initiative:

Telephones: (48) 3721-7380 / (48) 3721-4715 or via email: computacaonaescola@incod.ufsc.br

Young Tutors 2018 Started!

22/08/2018 14:59

The 2018 edition of the Young Programming Tutors project is starting with great excitement!

One of the first events of the project was the visit of the Young Tutors, students of the Almirante Carvalhal Primary School, to the sponsoring company  Involves Tecnologia e Inovação. During this visit, the Young Tutors got to know a bit about the day-to-day business of a technology company, visiting each of the sectors and talking to a representative of each function. One of the Young Tutors in the 2017 project and now a young apprentice at the company, Richard, also talked to this year’s students, telling them about their experience with the project.

In this project the Computação na Escola initiative is forming Young Tutors (students of Basic Education) for programming mobile applications with the support of Volunteer Mentors (IT professionals). The Young Tutors and Volunteer Mentors will be supporting teachers of Basic Education in computer education at the Almirante Carvalhal Municipal Primary School located in Florianópolis, in order to reach a larger number of students. The project also contributes to the training of Young Tutors in the area of ​​computing, providing learning and contact with professionals in the area of ​​Information Technology, bringing this practical experience to the participating students.

The project is being coordinated by the Computação na Escola/INCoD/INE/UFSC, dedicated to providing all students of Basic Education with the opportunity to learn computing.

This project is being sponsored by Involves Tecnologia e Inovação, a software company based in Florianópolis/SC that develops systems aimed at increasing the visibility and availability of products at points of sale, improving the execution of field teams in retail.

Companies/organizations interested in sponsoring other projects of Young Tutors may contact the Computing in School initiative:

Telephones: (48) 3721-7380 / (48) 3721-4715 or via email: computacaonaescola@incod.ufsc.br

CodeMaster – Automatic Assessment and Grading of App Inventor and Snap! Programs

16/11/2017 17:08

The development of computational thinking is a major topic in K-12 education. Many of the current experiences focus on teaching programming using block-based languages. As part of these activities, it is important for students to receive feedback on their assignments. Yet, in practice it may be difficult to provide personalized, objective and consistent feedback.  In this context, automatic assessment and grading has become important. While there exist diverse graders for text-based languages, support for block-based programming languages is still scarce.

CodeMaster is a free web application that in a problem-based learning context allows to automatically assess and grade projects programmed with App Inventor and Snap!.

Try it out! 

It uses a rubric measuring Computational Thinking (CT) based on the CT framework presented by Brennan & Resnick (2012) and the mobile CT rubric (Sherman and Martin, 2015)(Sherman et al., 2014). These dimensions are measured by analyzing the source code of the programs created adopting static code analysis to measure the kind and number of blocks used in the program quantifying CT criteria such as control statement, data, interaction, etc. Then based on a rubric, the programming projects are assessed and a score and grade is assigned.

Students can use the tool to get feedback to encourage them to improve their programming competencies.

 

It can also be used by teachers for assessing whole classes easing their workload.


More information:

Gresse von Wangenheim, C., J. C. R. Hauck, Demetrio, M. F., Pelle, R., N. d. C. Alves, H. Barbosa, L. F. Azevedo. CodeMaster v1.0 – An Overview. Technical Report INCoD/GQS.17.2017.P, INCoD/INE/UFSC, Florianópolis/Brazil, November 2017.

Demetrio, M. F. Desenvolvimento de um analisador e avaliador de código de App Inventor para ensino de computação. 2017. Trabalho de Conclusão de Curso. (Graduação em Ciência da Computação) – Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina.

Pelle, R. Desenvolvimento de um analisador e avaliador de código de SNAP! para ensino de computação. Project Thesis, Bachelor of Computer Science Course, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil. (in progress)