MIT App Inventor is an intuitive, visual programming environment that allows everyone – even children – to build fully functional apps for smartphones and tablets.
Those new to MIT App Inventor can have a simple first app up and running in less than 30 minutes. And what's more, our blocks-based tool facilitates the creation of complex, high-impact apps in significantly less time than traditional programming environments.
The MIT App Inventor project seeks to democratize software development by empowering all people, especially young people, to move from technology consumption to technology creation.
This week it was announced that Mass Technology Leadership Council (MassTLC) will present CSAIL principal investigator Hal Abelson’s team with the Distinguished Leadership Award for their work on the MIT App Inventor.App Inventor is a cloud-based open-source tool that lets users of all skill levels create working apps via smartphones and tablets. It serves as educational platform for teaching computing in middle school and high school, aimed at creating excitement around computer science at younger ages.
CoolThink@JC, a four-year initiative of The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, was launched today to empower the city’s primary school teachers and students with computational thinking skills, including coding.Developed through a collaboration with MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), the Education University of Hong Kong, and City University of Hong Kong, the eventual aim is to integrate computational thinking into all Hong Kong primary schools. Initially, CoolThink@JC will target over 16,500 students at 32 primary schools across the city.
Hal Abelson - the Class of 1922 Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, a principal investigator at CSAIL and co-chair of the MIT Council on Educational Technology - has been at the forefront of not only computer science education, but also teaching in general for much of his storied career. In the past year, he has been honored with both the Association for Computing Machinery's (ACM) Karl V. Karlstom Outstanding Educator Award and the SIGCSE Award for Outstanding Contributions to Computer Science Education for his work in advancing computer science education.
