Two Ways to Make Your Own Classroom App This Summer

Summer is here in the northern hemisphere and for many of us it's a time to work on things that we'd like to use in our classrooms when school resumes in the fall. One of those things could be developing a mobile app specifically for your classroom or courses you teach. It might sound like a daunting task, but it's not if you use either of the following tools.

Glide Apps

Glide Apps enables anyone who can make a spreadsheet in Google Sheets to create his or her own mobile app. If that sounds simple, that's because it is just that simple. The headers that you put into your spreadsheet and the data that you enter into your spreadsheet is used by Glide to generate a mobile app for you that will work on Android and iOS devices.

In this video I demonstrate two ways to use Glide Apps to create your own mobile app. The first method is to pick one of the Glide Apps templates and then modify the information within the template. The second method is to start from scratch with a blank Google Sheet. In my demonstration of the second method I explain and show how you can include maps and other multimedia elements.

MIT App Inventor
If you want to create a fully functional Android app, the MIT App Inventor is the place to start. The MIT App Inventor works in your web browser (Chrome is recommended). The only download that is required for App Inventor 2 is the optional emulator. The emulator allows people who don't have Android devices to text their apps on their desktops. If you have an Android device then the emulator is not required and you don't need to worry about installing it. MIT provides excellent support documentation and curriculum for new users. My tutorial on how to use the MIT App Inventor is embedded below.