By Ryan Imbriale and Stephanie Grimes
Step Up Their Game
Create an App Club
Back in 2009, Patapsco High School
& Center for the Arts in Baltimore,
Maryland, USA, began conversa-
tions with two alumni, Shawn and
Stephanie Grimes, app developers
in the area, about building an app
for the school. We were looking for
a true native app, not just a mobile
version of our website. Conversations
continued for the next two years until
the summer of 2011, when the couple
came to the school with an idea. They
wanted to engage students directly in
app building and development. In fall
2011, under their leadership, Patapsco
started the APPlied App Club to help
our students build their own app.
Initially the concept was simple: We
would have students work collabora-
tively with app developers to design,
build, and launch an app for the
school. We knew we wanted an app,
and we knew we had the talent within
our walls to create the app. With the
rise of technology, students have the
unique opportunity to become con-
tent and product creators by writing
blogs and using tools such as Twitter,
Instagram, and Facebook. APPlied
Club helps them take their content
creation and its use to the next level.
One of the huge benefits of app
development in school is what students learn from the process. As educators, we talk often about “extending”
learning outside the walls of the traditional classroom and making learning
“authentic.” There is truly no more
authentic approach to learning than
Take Students from Players to App Developers
The past two years in educational
technology might be remembered
as the birth of the tablet and the
dawn of the education app.
Blog posts, tweets, and articles are
filled with lists of apps for students
and teachers.
If you’re in a school, especially
a high school, you see every day
how students use apps in their
daily lives, and how apps can
be used in instruction.
Many of us have a tablet and a
smartphone, so we use apps
all the time for productivity, entertainment, shopping, and news.
The possibilities grow daily.
But there is more to apps than just
passively using them.
Here’s how to take students from
mere players to app developers.
having students take an idea from
brainstorming all the way to presenting it to an audience of 400-million-
plus users on i Tunes. The opportunities for exploration, collaboration,
and innovation are endless.
In APPlied Club, students are
usually working in groups or, as
they call them, scrums. Within these
groups, they put their heads together
and work to find a solution on their
own. To do that, they must cooperate
and listen to what everyone has
to share. Together students are able
to produce something they could
not achieve alone.
