Introduction to CoolThink and App Inventor

About This Resource

This webinar introduces the CoolThink curriculum and how to teach computational thinking using App Inventor.

Firstly, we cover the technical setup for a classroom using the App Inventor. Then we go over the mission and vision of CoolThink, including its pedagogies and teaching tips. We discuss how App Inventor could be used as a tool to encourage students to solve real-word problems and how CoolThink materials can be used. We will walk through the App Inventor workflow, official documentation and online resources.

About the Speakers

Evan Patton

Lead Software Engineer

App Inventor, MIT

Evan is the Lead Software Engineer at MIT App Inventor. He aims to help App Inventor users realize the full potential of their app ideas through the development of new components and features to aid in collaboration, rich data collection and visualization, and efficiency. His research interests include real-time collaboration, Internet of Things, and applications of artificial intelligence to facilitate mobile app development. Evan also oversees the development of the MIT Punya project to extend App Inventor with semantic capabilities for healthcare and humanitarian causes. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Angie Zhou

Education Specialist

App Inventor, MIT

Angie is an Education Specialist at the App Inventor team. She has extensive experience in curriculum design, teaching and business development. Angie hopes to design fun and inspiring learning experiences and programs. Prior to joining the App Inventor team, Angie was running her company and teaching kids coding since 2014. Angie is very curious to learn about how everything works and the latest development in business and technology. She loves learning things by watching videos. Angie graduated with a degree in engineering from the University of Cambridge.