Apps for good

There’s not an App for that. Not yet, anyway. But what if the children in your class could create it? – just as Karen Richards’ pupils have done...

You can be certain that real learning has taken place in your classroom on the day children return from a Skype meeting in which they have pitched their ideas to the CEO of Thomson Reuters in New York. Or when excitement and laughter fills the classroom as the sound of a cat emerges from a mobile device that’s been programmed by a 10- year-old boy to meow at the touch of a button. But neither of these amazing experiences would have occurred in my Year 6 classroom at Westfields Junior School had we not been the first primary aged group to join the Apps for Good (AfG) programme.

Westfields prides itself on providing real, relevant and motivating learning opportunities for children, equipping them for the future. So when our headteacher, Karine George, came across the AfG programme – an exciting course developed to inspire and motivate students in ICT – it seemed the perfect opportunity to introduce pupils to cutting-edge technology and develop key learning skills.

There was, however, a problem: the programme was designed for secondary schools. But, having learnt never to underestimate our pupils’ capacity to tackle ICT challenges, Karine remained undaunted… Fortunately for us, AfG took a similar view and were keen to work with the school to see if the scheme could be adapted for primary age children.

How it works

During the Apps for Good project, children work in teams to undertake a series of tasks that lead to the creation of a mobile app designed to solve the real-life issues affecting them, their peers and the community. They have to collaborate to agree on the problems they wish to tackle and then work together to come up with a solution.

The children are given opportunities to speak with real experts (designers, developers and entrepreneurs) and use technology for a real purpose. To the headteacher and me, this sounded an ideal way to challenge our Year 6 pupils in ICT whilst showing them, in a practical way, the importance of the learning skills we promote – teamwork, communication, creative thinking and perseverance.

At least that was my view until I realised I was one of the teachers chosen to lead the project… I did not own a smart phone, had a shaky idea of what an app actually was and, despite the fact that I have a 13- year-old in the house, had never actually used Skype. Slightly daunted, I set off to London with a group of colleagues to attend the first training course.

I left feeling reassured that even I could tackle this task as it relies not just, as I had feared, on upto- date software and complicated coding, but on teamwork, problem solving and ICT with a purpose.

Following children’s interests

Back at school, the fun began. Through a variety of activities – such as being given two minutes to discover three things they had not previously known about a partner – the children organised themselves into groups of three, four or five members who shared common goals. This quickly led to animated discussions, enthusiastic note taking, picture scribbling and the collection of ideas for apps based on their interests. They were brimming with suggestions and excited about the open ended nature of the task. Gradually, through further discussion and ‘board meetings’, they whittled their ideas down to just one. The next stage was to familiarise ourselves with the process of creating an interactive app. The children used App Inventor to achieve this – a free piece of software from MIT that will be familiar to anyone who has used Scratch (appinventor.mit.edu). It was one of the parts I had been most dreading as it was the first time I had tackled any kind of coding or programming other than Logo. However, my doubts were unfounded. In typically fearless fashion, the children were soon using App Inventor to fit together blocks of code and build their first app – the software simplifies the process so it is like constructing a flow chart from pieces of a puzzle.

The first tutorial children encounter on App Inventor is called Hello Purr. It shows them how to make the sound of a cat’s meow play when a button is clicked – the resulting sound of mewing devices caused great hilarity. The extension activity suggests allowing the children free rein to develop the idea further and the classroom soon resounded with a raucous choir of dogs oinking, cats neighing and pigs barking!

Working on their app ideas soon became the children’s favourite part of the week and they came up with a myriad of programmes. For example:

• An app to stop your dog snoring, waking it with a piercing alarm and then lulling it back to sleep with calming music – or a quietly read, specially written story.
• An app to help skateboarders locate skate parks using GPS, which also allows them to view videos of jumps along with tips and hints, as well as a game to practice the stunts.
• An app for people with allergies that allows them to scan the barcode of a product and find out whether it is safe for them to eat, based on a traffic light system. Excitement mounted as the children continued to refine their ideas, further researching the problem they wanted to solve, defining the app’s unique features, and finding out more about their target audience and potential competitors.

This was all leading to ‘Meeting the expert’. The children had the opportunity to Skype with business leaders from around the world (as mentioned, ours included the CEO of Thomson Reuters in New York). Our speaking and listening definitely had a real purpose on that day as the children explained their ideas clearly, summarised the main selling points of their products, and presented their initial business plans. The experts questioned pupils and made suggestions on how each app could be developed and its marketing and presentation improved. The children spoke clearly and professionally and listened carefully to feedback because they really cared about the outcome and were proud of their ideas. My favourite moment was when one usually quite reticent boy politely told one of the experts: “I will take your ideas into consideration.”

The culmination of the AfG programme is the Apps for Good Awards, the winners of which have their prototype apps redeveloped professionally and relaunched publicly. As I write, excitement is mounting as we recently learnt that, out of the 400 teams that entered, two of the 24 teams selected for the final are from Westfields (nine of our teams also made the shortlist of 70). So we are off to London where the Smurfs andKickaPowwill be pitching their ideas to more experts, including companies such as Blackberry and Dell. What an exciting end to what has been an extremely worthwhile and motivating experience. It just goes to show you should never underestimate children’s creativity, or put a ceiling on challenge or opportunity because of their age.

Apps for Good is calling for UK schools to apply to join the programme in 2013/14. Schools interested in taking part should visit the website, appsforgood.org