App Maker lesson plans
Each one is a class period with everything to run it: a teacher plan, a student worksheet, an exit ticket with answers, and the standards it meets. Students need no account, and a free class saves their work.
App Maker: Every Button Goes Somewhere
Students open a small quiz app: four screens and six buttons. It looks finished. Two of its buttons go nowhere. Students use the app the way a person would, find the buttons that do nothing, and fix each one by telling it which screen to go to. Then they draw the app as a map, with a box for each screen and an arrow for each button, and add a second question of their own.
FreeApp Maker: The App Remembers
Students open an app with a big 0 and a Tap button. Tapping does nothing to the 0, because the 0 is only words. They give the app a number to remember, tell the button to add 1 to it, and put the number's name in the words so the screen shows it. Three separate things: where the value is kept, what changes it, and what shows it. Then they make a Back to zero button work, and choose whether the number is kept when the app closes.
FreeApp Maker: But If
Students open a tap counter that already counts. It says Get to 20, and a You did it screen is waiting, but nothing happens at 20. They add one sentence to the Tap button: but if taps is at least 20, go to You did it. Now the same tap does nothing nineteen times and something new on the twentieth. Students trace what the app does on each tap in a table, try the three kinds of comparison, and find their rule in the code App Maker wrote.
FreeApp Maker: Somebody Else Tries It
Students get a small story app that its maker never showed to anyone. It has three problems: a screen with no way out, buttons whose words do not say what they do, and a hint that never appears. Students find the first with a guide. Then they trade seats, watch a partner use the app without helping, and write down what the partner taps and expects. They fix the app from what they saw, and the partner tries it again.