Programming Mobile Applications for Android Handheld Systems
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Course Details
Cost
FREE
Upcoming Schedule
- TBA
Course Provider
Coursera online courses
Coursera's online classes are designed to help students achieve mastery over
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professor and author Peggy Mason from the University of Chicago, and computer
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knowledge through video lectures. They will also provide challenging
assessments, interactive exercises during each lesson, and the opportunity to
use a mobile app to keep up with yo...
Coursera's online classes are designed to help students achieve mastery over
course material. Some of the best professors in the world - like neurobiology
professor and author Peggy Mason from the University of Chicago, and computer
science professor and Folding@Home director Vijay Pande - will supplement your
knowledge through video lectures. They will also provide challenging
assessments, interactive exercises during each lesson, and the opportunity to
use a mobile app to keep up with your coursework. Coursera also partners with
the US State Department to create “learning hubs” around the world. Students
can get internet access, take courses, and participate in weekly in-person
study groups to make learning even more collaborative. Begin your journey into
the mysteries of the human brain by taking courses in neuroscience. Learn how
to navigate the data infrastructures that multinational corporations use when
you discover the world of data analysis. Follow one of Coursera’s “Skill
Tracks”. Or try any one of its more than 560 available courses to help you
achieve your academic and professional goals.
Provider Subject Specialization
Humanities
Sciences & Technology
Course Description
Handheld systems, such as smartphones and tablets are now the most common way
for people to access and interact with computing services. The demand for
application development skills is therefore growing at a breathtaking pace.
These skills, however, are multi-‐ faceted, requiring students to master
computer science and engineering principles, to learn the details of specific
mobile application platforms, and to design artistic and engaging user
interfaces that respond to how, where and why handheld applications are used.
This course will cover the fundamental programming principles, software
architecture and user experience considerations underlying handheld software
applications and their development environments. To bring these concepts
alive, the course will involve in-‐depth, hands-‐on examples, implemented in
the Android Platform, the fastest growing segment of the handheld system user
base. Students will apply these teachi...
Handheld systems, such as smartphones and tablets are now the most common way
for people to access and interact with computing services. The demand for
application development skills is therefore growing at a breathtaking pace.
These skills, however, are multi-‐ faceted, requiring students to master
computer science and engineering principles, to learn the details of specific
mobile application platforms, and to design artistic and engaging user
interfaces that respond to how, where and why handheld applications are used.
This course will cover the fundamental programming principles, software
architecture and user experience considerations underlying handheld software
applications and their development environments. To bring these concepts
alive, the course will involve in-‐depth, hands-‐on examples, implemented in
the Android Platform, the fastest growing segment of the handheld system user
base. Students will apply these teachings, also using the Android Platform, in
laboratory projects and in a large-‐scale semester project.
**Note: This course is part of a Coursera Specialization**
This course and two others, led respectively by Drs. Douglas Schmidt and Jules
White of Vanderbilt University, have been designed to complement each other.
Click here to find out more about the [Mobile Cloud Computing with Android
(MoCCA) Specialization](https://www.coursera.org/specialization/mobilecloudcom
puting/2). Therefore, some of the programming assignments and the course
project for these courses will be coordinated.
This course focuses on handheld systems and the design of user-facing
applications, and will be taught first. The first Vanderbilt University
course, [Pattern-Oriented Software Architectures: Programming Mobile Services
for Android Handheld Systems](https://www.coursera.org/course/posa) will focus
on systems programming topics, such as middleware services and background
processing. The second Vanderbilt University course, [ Programming Cloud
Services for Android Handheld
Systems](https://www.coursera.org/course/mobilecloud) will focus on connecting
Android mobile devices to cloud computing and data storage resources,
essentially turning a device into an extension of powerful cloud-based
services on popular cloud computing platforms, such as Google App Engine and
Amazon EC2.
Nevertheless, each of these courses stands alone. Students are not required to
take all of them. Those who do, however, will gain a much more detailed, end-
to-end understanding of handheld systems and their applications.
Sort By
- 1 review
- 0 completed
4 years, 9 months ago
I has a medium level programmer in Java, and i was a newbie on android programming. The course was little bit difficult for me. The examples were so easy and very introductory and the assigments level was very different.
I think must exist another courses with more deep contents.
- 2 reviews
- 2 completed
5 years, 7 months ago
This course suffers from a fundamentally flawed approach to teaching Android
development. It tries to teach Android development by having students listen
to lectures and take quizzes instead of writing Android applications. While
the production quality of these lectures is high, they are nearly useless for
learning Android development.
Learning to write Android applications is mostly learning the Android API. It
is a rich, complex API and just like learning any other API such as JPA, JSF,
or Swing you have to write code to learn it. While this course does have
programming assignments, Coursera defeats the learning process by distributing
Android applications that are more than 90% complete with a few TO DO blocks
in them for students fill in with a few lines of code. The few lines of code
in the TO DO blocks are then peer graded.
This approach is useless. What is needed is to have students write entire
Android application...
This course suffers from a fundamentally flawed approach to teaching Android
development. It tries to teach Android development by having students listen
to lectures and take quizzes instead of writing Android applications. While
the production quality of these lectures is high, they are nearly useless for
learning Android development.
Learning to write Android applications is mostly learning the Android API. It
is a rich, complex API and just like learning any other API such as JPA, JSF,
or Swing you have to write code to learn it. While this course does have
programming assignments, Coursera defeats the learning process by distributing
Android applications that are more than 90% complete with a few TO DO blocks
in them for students fill in with a few lines of code. The few lines of code
in the TO DO blocks are then peer graded.
This approach is useless. What is needed is to have students write entire
Android applications. In a MOOC applications from thousands of students could
only be graded by an autograder, but Coursera would not spend the money needed
to develop an Android autograder. Hence the over-emphasis on lectures and
quizzes which are much easier to do, but ineffective.
The Princeton courses on algorithms by professors Sedgewick and Wayne have a
very impressive autograder that could serve as a model for Coursera's Android
courses. The professors specify an API that the application has to implement
and the autograder gives detailed feedback on the implementation. There will
be some challenges for an autograder for Android applications. It may not be
possible to autograde an app that plays an audio or video file. Someone would
have to watch and listen to see if it is played back correctly. Peer grading
would probably be needed in these cases.
Coursera is responsible for this failed approach. During the second course in
this specialization (taught by Professor Douglas Schmidt) some of us were
lamenting the lack of an autograder. Professor Schmidt responded that there
was no way to develop an autograder since they had no budget for the two
courses. This course alone provided over $400,000 in revenue to Coursera, but
they didn't invest any of it back into the course. Coursera ate all of the
seed corn.
Professor Porter probably did the best he could with what he had to work with.
It is up to Coursera to provide the resources (money) to create the technology
needed to teach this course effectively. Startups are supposed to create new
technology, not repackage centuries-old techniques and deploy them on the web.
Get with it, Coursera.
- 4 reviews
- 4 completed
6 years ago
The course is good as an introduction to the Android platform: all main
classes are (briefly) described and references to dig deeper are given.
Of course is a bit superficial, the subject is too big to be handled in few
weeks. The assignments are not really engaging (you just have to fill ToDo
parts in existing but incomplete programs) but just after the course I started
to make small apps - one for every topic - and this helped a lot to further
expand what I learned. If you think it as a kick-off to start learning Android
is a good course, just do not think it will make you immediately an Android
programmer.
- 33 reviews
- 29 completed
6 years, 4 months ago
I thought this class had a lot of potential. It felt as if multiple people
created it. The weekly emails were encouraging and a good summary. The
lectures explained concepts (although there was a bit too much of “watch me do
this.” The PDFs each week were good. The quizzes largely had you looking up
things in the manual. Or the examples. The examples were helpful to have. But
sometimes the quizzes didn’t match the examples as far as project names. Then
there were the assignments. I wanted the labs/assignments to reinforce the
material and make it hands on. That wasn’t what happened. The labs felt like
magic. There were typos. It was unclear exactly what was needed. I found
myself relying on the walkthrus from other students to get them done. Wasting
time on undocumented assumptions didn’t seem like a good way to spend time.. I
did like that there were unit tests so you could watch the emulator drive the
code. Overall, the class was f...
I thought this class had a lot of potential. It felt as if multiple people
created it. The weekly emails were encouraging and a good summary. The
lectures explained concepts (although there was a bit too much of “watch me do
this.” The PDFs each week were good. The quizzes largely had you looking up
things in the manual. Or the examples. The examples were helpful to have. But
sometimes the quizzes didn’t match the examples as far as project names. Then
there were the assignments. I wanted the labs/assignments to reinforce the
material and make it hands on. That wasn’t what happened. The labs felt like
magic. There were typos. It was unclear exactly what was needed. I found
myself relying on the walkthrus from other students to get them done. Wasting
time on undocumented assumptions didn’t seem like a good way to spend time.. I
did like that there were unit tests so you could watch the emulator drive the
code. Overall, the class was fair. If it wasn’t part of a three part series, I
probably would have dropped it. And I certainly wouldn’t have done the final
project.
- 3 reviews
- 3 completed
6 years, 2 months ago
I took this introductory course with some previous knowledge of the topics and
got 100% score. Overall, a solid MOOC with the right scope, nice
presentations, but a bit lacking in the practical side. Videolectures: I think
the videolectures for this course are quite professional. The presenter (Adam
Porter) does a great job, the videos are very informative, clear and concise.
I think the range and depth of the topics covered are appropriate, and the
number and duration of the videos is appropriate Code examples and Exercises:
this course includes a lot of code examples. However, I think there are too
many projects, sometimes with just a few differences, so it is a bit tedious
to look for specific content in those examples. I would say the amount of code
is right, but it is too scatered. The coding exercises are all of the "fill in
the gaps" kind. This kind of exercise seems appropriate for beginners, even
with no previous knowledge o...
I took this introductory course with some previous knowledge of the topics and
got 100% score. Overall, a solid MOOC with the right scope, nice
presentations, but a bit lacking in the practical side. Videolectures: I think
the videolectures for this course are quite professional. The presenter (Adam
Porter) does a great job, the videos are very informative, clear and concise.
I think the range and depth of the topics covered are appropriate, and the
number and duration of the videos is appropriate Code examples and Exercises:
this course includes a lot of code examples. However, I think there are too
many projects, sometimes with just a few differences, so it is a bit tedious
to look for specific content in those examples. I would say the amount of code
is right, but it is too scatered. The coding exercises are all of the "fill in
the gaps" kind. This kind of exercise seems appropriate for beginners, even
with no previous knowledge of Java. Final project: whitouth doubt this was the
worst aspect of this course. Not only the code in this project is full of
issues, as many students reported. My main criticism is the fact that this is
another "fill in the gaps" kind of exercise. Being the final project and the
ontly exercise using a peer review evaluation, I expected this final project
to be something else, something to be developerd from scratch.
- 7 reviews
- 7 completed
6 years, 4 months ago
Having completed this course, I have somewhat mixed feelings about it. On the
one hand, I learned the basic concepts (like Activity lifecycle or
ContentProviders), on the other hand I don’t feel ready to write more or less
serious application from scratch. It seems fine overview course, but the
practical part is weak. Lectures. I agree with the others who think that the
lectures can be more engaging. Every lecture has a predefined pattern: 1)
discuss a concept, 2) show the example application, 3) show the code how it is
done. From those three, only the first point is necessary. Examples are
predictable, so you don’t need to spend that much time to watch them, the code
is in contrast shown quickly, so you cannot really get into that (yes, you can
stop the video, but in practice I did not often want to). Said that, the set
of example applications used in the course is amazing (and you can download
them). May be the lecturer could skip ...
Having completed this course, I have somewhat mixed feelings about it. On the
one hand, I learned the basic concepts (like Activity lifecycle or
ContentProviders), on the other hand I don’t feel ready to write more or less
serious application from scratch. It seems fine overview course, but the
practical part is weak. Lectures. I agree with the others who think that the
lectures can be more engaging. Every lecture has a predefined pattern: 1)
discuss a concept, 2) show the example application, 3) show the code how it is
done. From those three, only the first point is necessary. Examples are
predictable, so you don’t need to spend that much time to watch them, the code
is in contrast shown quickly, so you cannot really get into that (yes, you can
stop the video, but in practice I did not often want to). Said that, the set
of example applications used in the course is amazing (and you can download
them). May be the lecturer could skip that part in the lectures and ask
students to explore the applications, providing a quiz to make sure they
understood what the particular lines of code do. Quizzes. They either require
documentation lookup, or bring up the details from lectures, which I often
forgot since the lectures were quite boring (see above). Not really useful.
Assignments. You needed to fill some lines of code and run tests. While that
improved towards the end of the course, I often could guess what to insert
without full understanding of that code. The latter assignments provided more
freedom, but still not enough to require deep understanding. This seems like a
constraint of an automated testing. Final project. Complete disappointment. I
allocated a whole day thinking that it would require some creative effort (it
was peer-graded), but it was once again a fill-line assignment. Since it was
hard to go the wrong way, the peer grading turned out to be formal and
unnecessary: I gave out the maximum score to all peers. To summarize, in my
opinion the course should spend less time on lectures and instead provide more
challenging assignments/projects where you need to implement a significant
part of an application. Personal/group projects would be very useful.
- 16 reviews
- 16 completed
6 years, 2 months ago
This class was a good introduction to Android programming concepts. I think
the professor did a good job of presenting the material. The only negative
that I have is in regards to the forums. Apparently no one was moderating them
because there was rampant cheating taking place in plain sight. Overall I
recommend this class. It was fun and pretty easy if you have any OO
programming experience.
- 6 reviews
- 5 completed
6 years, 3 months ago
I'd dropped the course after I discovered that the first 3 weeks of the course
= about 100 lessons at a website. It's kind of learning integrals on the 3
math lesson.
- 1 review
- 0 completed
6 years, 5 months ago
Firstly my background: Been a programmer for 20 years on various platforms. I
know enough java to get things done and this is my first formal course on the
Android Platform. The good: Great overview of all the main classes you'll be
using in creating an Android App. All the examples used in the videos are
available for download. The bad: As said in "The good", its just an overview.
You don't go into any detail of any of the components. The lecturer just
drones through the very verbose slides and doesn't make them interesting. I
eventually resorted to fast forwarding the videos to double speed! Too many
videos have be watched in a week. Then 1 assignment is used to test the basics
of some of the classes mentioned the lecture. They seemed to focus on quantity
rather than quality. How it could be improved. # Make the course longer,
reduce the number of videos per week # For each topic, have a dedicated
assignment for that topic to help ...
Firstly my background: Been a programmer for 20 years on various platforms. I
know enough java to get things done and this is my first formal course on the
Android Platform. The good: Great overview of all the main classes you'll be
using in creating an Android App. All the examples used in the videos are
available for download. The bad: As said in "The good", its just an overview.
You don't go into any detail of any of the components. The lecturer just
drones through the very verbose slides and doesn't make them interesting. I
eventually resorted to fast forwarding the videos to double speed! Too many
videos have be watched in a week. Then 1 assignment is used to test the basics
of some of the classes mentioned the lecture. They seemed to focus on quantity
rather than quality. How it could be improved. # Make the course longer,
reduce the number of videos per week # For each topic, have a dedicated
assignment for that topic to help solidify the concepts learnt for that topic.
This helps re-inforce what is just learnt, instead of wading through a few
hours of lectures and then doing an assignment at the end. # It started off
well with diagrams on Activity Lifecyle. The rest just became monotonous very
wordy slides. # They just barely skim the surface of a concept and then move
on # The assignments are just about filling in a couple of lines of code in
their predefined locations denoted by their TODO comments in the skeleton
source code. Nobody ever learnt anything by filling in code via TODO
statements. Conclusion: I had a lot of excitement for the Android platform
prior to starting this course. I would have dropped the course but I paid for
the signature track up front, so I'm reluctant to simply throw my money away.
I've done many courses in my 20 year programming history and I have to say
this one is forgettable. You will most likely get more value from another
course or by picking up a book and doing it the old fashioned way. Sorry for
the negative review. I realize it must be a mammoth task to package a course
of such a rich framework in just a 2 months. Be that as it may, this is my
perception having done the 80% of the course so far. A mentioned I think that
is the very problem: you can't condense a course of this nature into 2 months.
- 10 reviews
- 5 completed
6 years, 5 months ago
A pretty good class actually. The lecturer might be a bit old-fashioned but at
least he presents the contents methodically and with familiarity. He explains
almost evey basic aspect of android applications, including underlying
structure, four classes(activity, contentprovider, Broadcastreceiver,
Service), UI, async operations, networking, touching, location services etc
and have all corresponding labs and quizzes to help you learn them. Having
someone experienced to guide you through is definitely much better than dully
reading through the official documents and stuff. After the class you should
be able to dish out an android application with ease. I don't understand the
people complaining. It seems to me many of them don't have the required
programming background(it says you have to have at least about sophomore
level) and then can't understand the contents and then blame the lecturer.
Come on, this is serious programming, not a ch...
A pretty good class actually. The lecturer might be a bit old-fashioned but at
least he presents the contents methodically and with familiarity. He explains
almost evey basic aspect of android applications, including underlying
structure, four classes(activity, contentprovider, Broadcastreceiver,
Service), UI, async operations, networking, touching, location services etc
and have all corresponding labs and quizzes to help you learn them. Having
someone experienced to guide you through is definitely much better than dully
reading through the official documents and stuff. After the class you should
be able to dish out an android application with ease. I don't understand the
people complaining. It seems to me many of them don't have the required
programming background(it says you have to have at least about sophomore
level) and then can't understand the contents and then blame the lecturer.
Come on, this is serious programming, not a child's game. Go take some intro
to programming before returning and fantasizing about making an app without
spending any effort. If you want some "courses" which claim to teach something
but in the end just bluffs its way through with seemingly funny but totally
contentless stuffs, this is not for you and we're happy to have you leaving
anyways. The deadline changess are probably about "signature track", which i
doubt has more to do with coursera than the lecturer anyways. Some others
complain about the massive reading one has to do besides of the lecture videos
to finish the assignments and fashion out a real application. But this is how
you learn. Lectures are always just a summary and guide. It can’t replace
reading. If you don’t even have this basic notion then you probably shouldn’t
be doing CS at all. Bottom line: There’s simply NO course which can MAGICALLY
turn you into a competent Android programmer by just lecturing. And this
course this already doing great it what it can.
- 18 reviews
- 14 completed
6 years, 4 months ago
As a CS student, I ended up finding this course useful, even though it is
clearly below the level of most MOOCs on Software. It is more of an overview
of Android's features rather than a place where you could learn this stuff in
a solid manner. Even though the lectures are well organised and the
instructors are available on forums, the quizzes are too easy and you will
learn little from it (this was half-solved during the course, when they
introduced extra exercises), since they're based on filling TODO's with just a
few sentences. It is not easy to identify what went wrong, but even as someone
who completed everything until ~week 5, I do not feel I do comfortably know
Android by know, besides an overall knowledge on what can it do. Despite all
this, it is great material to keep around (mainly for future reference, to
consult while you develop).
Student
1/10 starsTaking Now
6 years, 5 months ago
This course is extremely disappointing. The lectures are dry and all look
exactly the same. The material is presented in the least interesting way
possible...a powerpoint that just drones on and on about classes and methods
to perform abstract functions within Android. The "example applications" are
not interesting and don't get you excited. Often times the lab exercises are
disjointed from the lecture, don't reinforce the concepts, have typos, and are
really not informative. Many students complain of spending hours for very
little return. There also appears to be something wrong that is triggering the
instructor to react by changing deadlines, reducing the number of graded
exercises, etc. I suspect that so many people are jumping ship that he is
doing anything he can to keep people on board. Having taken many other courses
on Coursera, I'm disappointed with this offering as are many of the students
active on the discussion forum.
- 10 reviews
- 9 completed
6 years, 4 months ago
Prior Experience: A Java developer already learning Android Programming since
last July. Already completed "Creative, Serious, Playful Android" course. This
is a good course because instructor provided tons of source codes for student
to download before the course began in late January. He also put key points in
slides that I constantly refer to when taking quizzes and doing labs. Because
of this course, I finally understand the usage of BroadcastReceiver,
Notification area and Handler class. I am looking forward to week 8 where
Service and Content Provider are covered: advanced topics that I am confused
of after reading as many online tutorials as I can find. The labs are
manageable with practical values, for example, Todo Manager lab in week 3 and
Twitter App in week 5. I paid for the signature track for the first time
because I am so impressed with the quality of course materials and
instructor's teaching method. Thank you instruc...
Prior Experience: A Java developer already learning Android Programming since
last July. Already completed "Creative, Serious, Playful Android" course. This
is a good course because instructor provided tons of source codes for student
to download before the course began in late January. He also put key points in
slides that I constantly refer to when taking quizzes and doing labs. Because
of this course, I finally understand the usage of BroadcastReceiver,
Notification area and Handler class. I am looking forward to week 8 where
Service and Content Provider are covered: advanced topics that I am confused
of after reading as many online tutorials as I can find. The labs are
manageable with practical values, for example, Todo Manager lab in week 3 and
Twitter App in week 5. I paid for the signature track for the first time
because I am so impressed with the quality of course materials and
instructor's teaching method. Thank you instructor.