The Apps Class: K-12 Teachers as Designers of Contemporary Mobile Education

• In Event: The Critical Value of Design: Transformative Opportunities in Online Learning

Abstract

Educational Apps represent an extraordinary and largely untapped array of potential tools for use by educators and students in the multifaceted contexts of face-to-face, hybrid, and distance education. To this extent, we have pioneered a series of courses for K-12 educators to design and develop iPhone and iPad Apps, specifically in the context of mobile education. In this paper we provide an overview of the App design course, a brief showcase of student-designed iPhone apps from the course, a selection of observed and anticipated impacts of App development for K-12 educators, and recommendations for future App development by educators.

Authors

• Charles DeVaughn Miller, University of Minnesota

• Aaron Doering, University of Minnesota

• Brad McLain