10 Steps to Hosting an App Design and Prototyping Camp

Purpose & objective

Participants will learn how a large urban school district followed 10 steps to organize and deliver a virtual summer coding camp focused on app design and prototyping to build student interest in coding. We will share our story of how we explored and built app prototypes to solve community problems in the midst of distance learning and community protests and have refined our camp and app prototype showcase over three years. In addition, strategies for building connections with community businesses and computer science experts will be shared.

Outline

I. Word Cloud Poll through Poll Everywhere or Mentimeter - What are some challenges in the communities where you live that you think an app could help with? - 3 minutes
II. Creating A Prototype Step-by-Step - App Design Journal - 5 minutes (Participants create sketches of app screens with app of choice and share on social media)
A.UI vs UX
B. Accessibility
III. App Icons - Design, Color, and Purpose - 5 minutes (Participants create sketch of app icon and share on social media)
IV. App Pitch - How To Stand Out - 2 minutes (Participants submit app slogan to Poll Everywhere)
V. Recruiting Showcase Judges - Computer Science Experts, App Develops, and Community Connections - 5 minutes
VI. Showcase Event - Key Takeaways - 5 minutes
VII. Questions - 5 minutes

* Student examples shared throughout
*Participants can create the start of a prototype during session and share out screenshots or short video on social media.

Supporting research

Apple Everyone Can Code Curriculum

Apple K-12 Teaching Code - https://www.apple.com/education/k12/teaching-code/

App Design Journal - https://education-static.apple.com/coding-club-kit/appjournal.key

Code.org Why Computer Science - https://code.org/promote

Howard, N. and Howard, K., ISTE, 2020. Coding +Math: Strengthen K-5 Math Skills With Computer Science.

Randles, ISTE, 2018. 4 ways to make CS for all a reality - https://www.iste.org/explore/Computer-Science/4-ways-to-make-CS-for-all-a-reality

Silva, ISTE, 2019. Make Hour of Code a lifelong passion with these free resources - https://www.iste.org/explore/computer-science/make-hour-code-lifelong-passion-these-free-resources

Swift Coding Club - https://www.apple.com/education/docs/swift-club-playgrounds.pdf

Valenzuela, ISTE, 2019. Lessons to keep Hour of Code going year-round - https://www.iste.org/explore/computer-science/lessons-keep-hour-code-going-year-round

Valenzuela, ISTE, 2019. Profile of a technologically literate graduate - https://www.iste.org/explore/Computer-Science/Profile-of-a-technologically-literate-graduate

Valenzuela, ISTE, 2020. Rev Up Robotics: Real-World Computational Thinking in the K-8 Classroom

Williams, ISTE, 201. No Fear Coding: Computational Thinking Across the K-5 Curriculum