AppInventor support

[dalelane]

https://twitter.com/Math_CS_Teach/status/1016001945641811970

MIT AppInventor is a bit Scratch-like but lets you build apps that can be deployed to Android devices. And according to this, soon to iOS devices, too.

In the same way that it was easy to add Python support by re-purposing the existing APIs for the Scratch extension, it might be worth looking into how AppInventor could drive the same API.

If it's not too complicated, it could be very nice to allow students to write machine-learning-powered apps that they can run on a mobile phone.

[dalelane]

looks like it supports extensions http://ai2.appinventor.mit.edu/reference/other/extensions.html

[dalelane]

Not sure if this is a good idea or not.

It's a bit cliched to start uncontrollably adding features to software that's been around for a while. I'm concerned about over-complicating things.

I'm already not loving the shove-the-Python-button-in approach...

If I do this, it needs to be in a way that doesn't clutter up the current core workflow

[ajdaniel]

I like this idea. I don’t think it will clutter up the application. That page though, might get busy. I think the core items: train, learn & test, and scratch should remain, but python and additional “clients” can live behind an “advanced” button, or something like that.

Appinventor sounds great as a client extension for ML4K, do you know how much usage it has worldwide and Uk?

[dalelane]

No idea. I'd never heard of it before yesterday.

I do think that's important though - if it's not already widely used, I'm much less inclined to give this a try. I think it's too big an ask to ask teachers to adopt the Watson-specific stuff and a new coding platform. What I've done so far was possible because people were already familiar with Scratch and just needed to take the additional incremental step.

It gets more appealing when it supports iOS as well. I don't know any kids with Android phones. (But that might be a very UK-centric perspective)

[dalelane]

a comment here: https://twitter.com/adamcohenrose/status/1017745254022250499

Got me looking at alternatives... it seems that there are a number of forks and distributions of AppInventor around : https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/ai4a/ajG4Q6UrRR8

My gut says that building on the base open-source AppInventor project would be the best approach, rather than picking a distribution. But I know nothing about the differences between them yet.

[ewpatton]

@ajdaniel According to Google Analytics, last year we had over 8.3 million worldwide users, of which 352k were based in the UK (ranked 6th).

@dalelane I think that one of our Master Trainers has written some extensions based on Watson. He might be willing to share them.

[dalelane]

@ewpatton Thanks for getting in touch!

I'd forgotten to update this issue, but since this thread started someone has started work on AppInventor support. It's being developed separately over at https://github.com/kylecorry31/ML4K-AI-Extension but I'd like to get this added into the Machine Learning for Kids UI this week.

I'd be interested to see what else people have done with AppInventor and Watson though - I couldn't find anything when I searched.

[MrMazzone]

@dalelane I am the Master Trainer @ewpatton is referring to!

Evan, keep an eye out for when Dale adds App Inventor support to the ML for Kids UI. Feel free to check out the extension's repo and give it a try before that if you like.

[dalelane]