Enabling Teenagers to Create and Share Apps

Abstract

Visual coding frameworks and block-based languages became an essential resource for computer science education. Applied in different courses and subjects they foster computational thinking, collaboration, and knowledge-sharing. Furthermore, sharing the outcomes promote the development of an open mindset and teaches the principles of open source. In our work, we present Pocket Code, a mobile open source visual coding framework. We describe how this integrated development environment enables young users to program apps in a block-based manner directly on their mobile devices. We discuss how teenagers can share their projects via the app's sharing platform or as an Android application package file. The presented case illustrates how teenagers can collaboratively drive co-creative communities and foster open source and innovation by creating and sharing mobile apps.