CodeCombat Podcast Features App Inventor

Dr. Natalie Lao, Executive Director of the App Inventor Foundation, shares how App Inventor can be used to foster computational action with kids from around the world.

Computational action is an approach that provides students with opportunities to impact their lives and their communities while learning programming and computational thinking. A computational action approach provides students with real world problems and real world contexts to apply their computer science knowledge. This approach can make computing education more inclusive, motivating, and empowering for young learners.

In this episode, Natalie Lao, Executive Director of the App Inventor Foundation, shares how she's fostered computational action with kids from around the world and integrated this mindset into schools and classrooms. The App Inventor Foundation is a nonprofit established by the creators of App Inventor, a free and open-source web platform that empowers learners, hobbyists, and inventors across the globe to create mobile apps for real, effective change in their communities.

Through the course of the conversation, Lao shares her advice for students and teachers wanting to integrate computational action into their own lives. She emphasizes the importance of engaging with a problem in your community that you really care about and addressing that problem using computer science.