RoboRun: A gamification approach to control flow learning for young students with TouchDevelop

This demo paper introduces young students to writing code in a touch enabled interactive maze game. Problem-based learning is given a gamified approach to learning, while simultaneously introducing the TouchDevelop platform to build basic first control flow algorithms and to learn about ordering and loops in conditional statements

LOWERING THE BARRIER TO DEVELOPMENT AND ADOPTION OF PARTICIPATORY SENSING APPLICATIONS

Participatory sensing has the potential to support human-driven sensing and data collection at an unprecedented scale. In this emerging class of software systems, participants use an application on their mobile phone to collect digital samples of the surrounding world using on-board sensors (e.g., camera, GPS, accelerometer). Such an approach can supplement data from special-purpose sensors, or even replace their use, providing data from a fine-grained, human perspective and potentially reducing the costs of large-scale data collection efforts. While many potential participatory sensing campaign organizers have extensive domain knowledge that drives the need for large-scale data collection and analysis, they do not necessarily have the skills required to develop robust software for partic- ipatory sensing. To address this challenge, I present Mobile Campaign Designer, a toolkit which lowers the barrier for the development of participatory sensing applica- tions. Using Mobile Campaign Designer, a campaign organizer can provide a simple, descriptive specification of the requirements of their participatory sensing campaign, and the toolkit generates the source code and an executable for a tailored mobile application that embodies the current best practices in participatory sensing. Since participatory sensing applications typically are used to study physical phenomena, the toolkit includes an algorithm that considers spatiotemporal requirements for the crowdsourced data set and recruits volunteers that can help to satisfy those requirements. Furthermore, this work lowers the barrier for the creation of participatory sens- ing applications for a diverse group through the Mobile Application Development for Science program, an outreach and educational initiative aimed at engaging middle school students with science and technology and increasing their interest in careers in science and technology. Using the Mobile Campaign Designer toolkit, along with other mobile application development tools, students will design and conduct a participatory sensing data collection campaign. The students define their campaign, create their mobile application, collect samples, and analyze the results of their data. In addition to lowering the barrier for participatory sensing application development, the program is intended to serve as an intervention that will impact attitudes and perceptions towards science and computing, thus broadening participation of under- represented groups in science and technology

Global Sequence Protocol: A Robust Abstraction for Replicated Shared State

In the age of cloud-connected mobile devices, users want responsive apps that read and write shared data everywhere, at all times, even if network connections are slow or unavailable. The solution is to replicate data and propagate updates asynchronously. Unfortunately, such mechanisms are notoriously difficult to understand, explain, and implement. To address these challenges, we present GSP (global sequence protocol), an operational model for replicated shared data. GSP is simple and abstract enough to serve as a mental reference model, and offers fine control over the asynchronous update propagation (update transactions, strong synchronization). It abstracts the data model and thus applies both to simple key-value stores, and complex structured data. We then show how to implement GSP robustly on a client-server architecture (masking silent client crashes, server crash-recovery failures, and arbitrary network failures) and efficiently (transmitting and storing minimal information by reducing update sequences)

Initial Evaluation of a Mobile Scaffolding Application that seeks to Support Novice Learners of Programming

The aim of this paper is to explore the use of an application that scaffolds the constructions of programs on a mobile device. The application was developed to support novice learners of programming outside the classroom. This paper reports on results of a first experiment conducted to evaluate the mobile application. The main research questions are: (i) whether the use of the application is effective in supporting construction of programs on a mobile device; and (ii) how the learners experienced the use of the mobile application. Data was collected by task completion, video and audio recording, and a questionnaire. A total of 18 first-year learners of programming from two African universities took part in the experiment by participating in focus groups. Almost two thirds of the learners completed two out of three programming exercises using the mobile application, with all the learners completing the first program. The results of the study suggest that the students found the mobile application useful, as evident from high rating of its features. The results also consisted of feedback from the learners on features that would make the application more usable. The findings suggest that the use of a mobile scaffolding application may support novice learners of programming outside the classroom. The outcomes of these results lead to a clearer understanding of how to design a mobile application that scaffolds the construction of programs on a mobile device

A plug-in architecture for connecting to new data sources on mobile devices

Abstract—A key use for mobile devices is to search and view online information while on the go. As a result, many mobile ap-plications serve as front ends for online databases. While there are many thousands of data sources that provide web service APIs giving access to their databases, creating mobile applica-tions to use those sources requires significant mobile program-ming knowledge and a significant amount of time. We introduce Spinel, a plug-in architecture for Android, and a set of web-based configuration tools that together enable users to connect mobile applications to new data sources without programming. Spinel also provides APIs that make it easy for developers to create new applications that use those data sources. We provide three dem-onstration Android applications that use such data: Listpad for entering personal lists, Listviewer for viewing results of data que-ries, and Mapviewer for displaying query results on a map. An informal usability study showed that users could successfully attach new data sources to those applications. Keywords—end-user programming; mobile devices; plug-ins; web APIs; mashups I

Appalachian Technology Initiative

A capstone submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education in the College of Education at Morehead State University by Paul David Green on March 28, 2016

Supporting the Construction of Programs on a Mobile Device: A Scaffolding Framework

Computer programming is a difficult subject for most novice learners. Providing support that complements classroom learning could contribute to tackling the difficulties. Due to the ubiquity of mobile devices, such support can be provided by scaffolding the construction of programs on a mobile device. In order to design such a mobile intervention, learners’ needs and limitations of mobile devices need to be placed at the center of the design process. This paper combines learners’ needs and limitations of mobile devices to identify scaffolding strategies. Identification of scaffolding strategies is based on a scaffolding framework. Using specific examples, this paper will then show how the scaffolding strategies have been implemented on a mobile device