App Planner: Utilizing Generative AI in K-12 Mobile App Development Education
Open accessAbstract
App Planner is an interactive support tool for K-12 students, designed to assist in creating mobile applications. By utilizing generative AI, App Planner helps students articulate the problem and solution through guided conversations via a chat-based interface. It assists them in brainstorming and formulating new ideas for applications, provides feedback on those ideas, and stimulates creative thinking. Here we report usability tests from our preliminary study with high-school students who appreciated App Planner for aiding the app design process and providing new viewpoints on human aspects especially the potential negative impact of their creation.
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Over-reliance on AI for brainstorming or direct reuse can dampen originality and depth of creation.
“The deeper consequence is a drag on core capability development: over-reliance on AI for brainstorming or direct reuse can dampen originality and depth of creation [117,135,150]”
From A Systematic Review of Generative AI in K–12: Mapping Goals, Activities, Roles, and Outcomes via the 3P Model (2025) · cites this paper as [117]
In §4, Limitations & Future Directions (page unavailable), the authors warn that reliance on AI-generated solutions and generic answers could stifle students’ creative exploration. This supports the concern about originality, but the paper does not link direct reuse to diminished creativity or report a loss of depth in students’ creations; §3.4 instead describes the tool adding depth to students’ initial ideas. (LLM, conf=0.87)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredIn design and problem-solving tasks, conversational scaffolds or CPS tutor agents are used to cultivate creative thinking and social responsibility, addressing the shortage of individualized guidance.
“In design and problem-solving tasks, conversational scaffolds or CPS tutor agents are used to cultivate creative thinking and social responsibility, addressing the shortage of individualized guidance [117,118].”
From A Systematic Review of Generative AI in K–12: Mapping Goals, Activities, Roles, and Outcomes via the 3P Model (2025) · cites this paper as [117]
AI fosters generative practices: it supports creative writing, guides user-centered design thinking, enables more autonomous programming, and helps generate arts and history content, encouraging learners to move beyond 'the right answer' toward more original exploration and construction.
“Second, AI fosters generative practices: it supports creative writing [135], guides user-centered design thinking [117], enables more autonomous programming [96], and helps generate arts and history content [72,113], encouraging learners to move beyond 'the right answer' toward more original exploration and construction.”
From A Systematic Review of Generative AI in K–12: Mapping Goals, Activities, Roles, and Outcomes via the 3P Model (2025) · cites this paper as [117]
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
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- Authors
- Kim, D. Y. J., Ravi, P., Williams, R., & Yoo, D.
- Affiliations
- MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (US)
- MIT Media Lab (US)
- Harvard University (US)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the 23rd Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2024-06-17
- Pages
- 770-775
- OpenAlex
- W4391418149
- Cited by
- 7
- References
- 18
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 5
- FWCI
- 3.07
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- arxiv.org
- Locations
- ACM International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC) (publishedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Science Applications › Teaching and Learning Programming
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Usability and User Interface Design
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Artificial Intelligence in Education
- Keywords
- generative AI, K-12 students, high school students, brainstorming, creative thinking, usability, AI-generated feedback, negative impacts of technology
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