Teaching Control Structures Using App Inventor

Abstract

Teaching programming has always been a difficult subject, especially control structures. The introduction of Initial Learning Environments like GameMaker and Alice made learning these control structures easier and more fun. A new environment in this area is App Inventor, created by Google and now maintained by MIT. App Inventor allows the user to create apps for the mobile operating system Android. This research aims to answer whether App Inventor really makes learning control structures more fun and easier. A series of lessons has been created, which teaches the basic control structures using App Inventor. This series of lessons was tested at a Dutch secondary school and resulted in positive results but different opinions among the students.