K12 | Burtons Media Group

Texas has recently added Mobile Application Development to the approved curriculum for high school students beginning in the academic year 2012-2013. This is a very exciting development for high school students in Texas and, assuming other states follow suit, across the U.S. and potentially the world (okay, yes, I like to think big!). After carefully combing through the curriculum I found that my Beginning Mobile App Development with Corona textbook, which was written for the college age, is very close to meeting the majority of requirements set forth by the Texas Education Agency curriculum 126.39 (as approved 9/2011). By late spring I will have a textbook that meets or exceeds all of the curriculum requirements provided by the T.E.A. The working title for the textbook is Learning Mobile Application Development. The text will introduce programming concepts via making mobile apps (a previous course in programming is not required by T.E.A.), how to identify the needs and create the user interface for apps, provide opportunities for students to collaborate on the projects, conduct research in the mobile industry, provide many opportunities to exercise their critical thinking skills, learn about their responsibilities as digital citizens, and gain additional technology skills. Of course, the textbook isn't exclusively intended for Texas high school students. I am writing in a way that will hopefully make the book accessible to anyone who would like to learn how to create mobile applications but has no previous programming experience. If you have any questions or comments, please, drop me a line!