Teach with App Inventor

Welcome Teachers!

Teaching with App Inventor is easy with the following resources

Setting up Your Classroom

Dr. Sonia Mitchell with MIT undergraduate researcher Gisella Kokoti during an App Inventor professional development event January 13, 2024.

The most common way for students to use App Inventor is to establish a connection between a classroom computer and a mobile device over Wi-Fi, as described in our general setup instructions.

In most classrooms, App Inventor works without issues. A good way to test your classroom network is by following one of our introductory Hour of Code tutorials. If a classroom computer and mobile device can connect over Wi-Fi with one of these basic apps, it can connect with any app.

  • Having trouble with classroom Wi-Fi and App Inventor?
  • Some schools have security restrictions on Wi-Fi networks that prevent the App Inventor platform from connecting to a mobile device. Teachers can share our Letter for IT Professionals in Schools to answer common technical questions, recommend network settings, and provide alternatives.
  • Don't have mobile devices for students?
  • Students can use our phone emulator on their computers to test apps as they code. If your classroom has Chromebooks, students can code and test apps inside the Chromebook operating system.

Computational Thinking Curriculum

Based on the Coolthink@JC curriculum, these ten units comprise approximately 50 hours of content. Students learn to think computationally while making mobile apps with MIT App Inventor. Developed by MIT App Inventor in collaboration with Education University of Hong Kong with support from the Hong Kong Jockey Club, this curriculum is targeted toward middle school grades and up.

Mobile CSP

This high school curriculum is a College Board-endorsed AP Computer Science Principles curriculum and professional development based on the theme of mobile computing. The course engages students, is project-based, and encourages collaboration and creativity.

The Internet of Things:
Data Acquisition and Analysis

An image of the IoT app with labels showing sensor data.

Solving Real-World Problems: The internet of things (IoT) is a way collect and analyze real-world data to solve important problems. Today, almost every electronic device, even tiny ones, can connect to the Internet. It's critical for students to understand how data can move in and out of those devices. IoT lets us remotely control lights in our homes, monitor our property and make data-informed decisions about our communities, factories, and businesses.

Data Science: Visualizing and Analyzing Data
from a Spreadsheet

An image of a graph showing ice duration data for Spirit Lake in Iowa.

Developing and Using Models: Today, making sense of data through visualization is a crucial skill for identifying real-world problems in your community and communicating evidence about them to others. Students create graphs using data from Google Sheets spreadsheets. They compare datasets found on multiple sheets and, in a final step, add a line of best fit. This guide provides everything students need to start learning how to create phone apps with their own datasets.

Community Forum

We encourage everyone to join and participate in discussions on our community site. Go to Groups, and request to be added to the " Teach App Inventor" group. Educators can also share ideas, lesson plans, activities, etc through the community platform.

MIT App Inventor Tutorials Page

This page includes various tutorials of all levels for use in a classroom.

App-Building Guides for the Youth Mobile Power Series

In partnership with YR Media, we've built 9 App Building Guides that are based on articles written by young people on topics that are meaningful to them. They can be used as single tutorials or bundled into a computational action curriculum.

Artificial Intelligence with App Inventor

MIT is building AI tools into App Inventor that will enable even beginning students to create original AI applications that would have been advanced research a decade ago.

Official Book: Become an App Inventor

This is our official guide from MIT App Inventor to designing, building, and sharing apps. Published by MITeen Press.

MIT App Inventor YouTube Page

This is our official YouTube page where you can find videos and video tutorials for Hour of Code, Computational Thinking Curriculum, Computational Action projects, AI with App Inventor, and many more topics.

Links to other App Inventor Resources

Here you'll find links to other curricula and resources developed by educators from around the world.