Creative, Serious and Playful Science of Android Apps

This course is a novice-friendly and delightful introduction to computer science and to programming Android apps for smartphones and tablets. No prior programming knowledge is necessary. In this course you will have fun learning to create an app for modern Android devices, such as the Nexus tablet.

You will use the programming tools that Android software developers use to build your own useful app during this course. Along the way, we will introduce fundamental computer science principles and programming ideas that power today’s smartphone and tablet apps.

We will also peek beyond the borders of Android programming to the world of computer science. Meet computer science undergraduates, see one of the first vacuum tube computers, the first transistor, and now-modern scientific research on the Blue Waters supercomputer—all at Illinois.

Android Developer Track: Weeks 1–5 (required for passing the course):
This portion of the course is intended to give you a slow and gentle introduction to the basics of Android application development such as downloading, installing, and setting up the tools you will use in this course. You will also create your first Android app and share the results of your experience with your classmates—all while writing hardly any code at all!

Computer Science and Programming Track: Weeks 6–8 (optional):
During this latter portion of the course, you can delve deeper into computer science fundamentals and beginner programming techniques. Together we will explore this content while developing another really cool project to share.

This course is composed of 2 tracks organized into 8 distinct weekly topics:

Android Developer Track

Week 1: An App for Hello World

Week 2: A Simple App for ILLIAC

Week 3: A Working App for ILLIAC

Week 4: An App for Emily

Week 5: A Simple Web App and Debugging Code in 0g

Computer Science and Programming Track

Week 6: An App to Share My Views

Week 7: An App for Bitmaps and Images

Week 8: An App for Moving Pixels