Android App Development

Launch Your Android App Development Career

Master the knowledge and skills necessary to develop maintainable mobile computing apps

About This Specialization

This Specialization enables learners to successfully apply core Java programming languages features & software patterns needed to develop maintainable mobile apps comprised of core Android components, as well as fundamental Java I/O & persistence mechanisms. Learners who successfully complete this Specialization will be well-prepared to master the more advanced material in the subsequent "Mobile Cloud Computing with Android" Specialization. The Capstone project will integrate the material from throughout the Specialization to exercise and assess the ability of learners to create an interesting Android app by applying knowledge and skills learned in previous MOOCs, including Java programming features, Android Studio tools, Android Activity components, Material Design, file I/O and data persistence, unit testing, and software patterns. The project itself will be similar in design goals to previous assignments, however it will provide less of the skeleton code than earlier MOOCs provide to enable more creativity to learners and greater opportunity for learners to customize the app.

Created by:

5 courses

Follow the suggested order or choose your own.

Projects

Designed to help you practice and apply the skills you learn.

Certificates

Highlight your new skills on your resume or LinkedIn.

Courses

Beginner Specialization.: No prior experience required.

COURSE 1
Java for Android
Upcoming session: May 30 — Jul 3.
Commitment
4 weeks of study, 5-6 hours/week
Subtitles
English
About the Course
This MOOC teaches you how to program core features and classes from the Java programming language that are used in Android, which is the dominant platform for developing and deploying mobile device apps. In particular, this MOOC covers key Java programming language features that control the flow of execution through an app (such as Java’s various looping constructs and conditional statements), enable access to structured data (such as Java's built-in arrays and common classes in the Java Collections Framework, such as ArrayList and HashMap), group related operations and data into classes and interfaces (such as Java's primitive and user-defined types, fields, methods, generic parameters, and exceptions), customize the behavior of existing classes via inheritance and polymorphism (such as subclassing and overriding virtual methods). Learners will apply these Java features in the context of core Android components (such as Activities and basic UI elements) by applying common tools (such as Android Studio) needed to develop Java programs and useful Android apps. Learners will work on several hands-on projects throughout the MOOC, i.e., each week will require learners to write solutions to programming assignments that reinforce the material covered in the lecture videos. There will be roughly 4-6 hours of student engagement time per week, including video lectures, quizzes, and programming assignments.
COURSE 2
Android App Components - Intents, Activities, and Broadcast Receivers
Upcoming session: May 29 — Jul 3.
Subtitles
English
About the Course
This 4 week MOOC builds upon the overview of Java and Android covered in Course 1 by delving deeper into core Android app components, such as intents, activities, and broadcast receivers. You will learn by example how to program these core Android components together with Android concurrency frameworks and basic Java file I/O classes (such as File and InputStream) and Android storage mechanisms (such as Shared Preferences). You'll also learn how to use the Git source code management system. Throughout this MOOC you'll work incrementally on a project involving downloading, storing, and display images from remote websites. Each week you will add additional capabilities to the project, based on material covered in the lecture videos. You'll spend roughly 4 hours per week watching video lectures, taking quizzes, and programming assignments with Java and Android.
COURSE 3
Android App Components - Services, Local IPC, and Content Providers
Upcoming session: May 29 — Jul 3.
Subtitles
English
About the Course
This 4 week MOOC builds upon the core Android app components and concurrency frameworks covered in Course 2 by focusing on started and bound services, local inter-process communication (IPC), and content providers. Case study apps will be examined from multiple perspectives to learn how to program these app components using Android's material design paradigm. Students will work incrementally on a hands-on project involving a material design-based RSS reader app. Each week you will add additional capabilities to the project, based on material covered in the lecture videos. You'll spend roughly 4 hours per week watching video lectures, taking quizzes, and programming assignments with Java and Android.
COURSE 4
Engineering Maintainable Android Apps
Current session: May 22 — Jun 26.
Subtitles
English
About the Course
Engineering Maintainable Android Apps, which is a 4 week MOOC that shows by example various methods for engineering maintainable Android apps, including test-driven development methods and how to develop/run unit tests using JUnit and Robotium (or equivalent automated testing frameworks for Android), as well as how to successfully apply common Java/Android software patterns to improve the extensibility and clarity of Android apps. Students will work on the appropriate automated unit quizzes, based on the material covered in the lecture videos. These lessons will demonstrate the benefits of good software engineering practices that are targeted at creating maintainable code for mobile apps. There will be roughly 3-4 hours of student engagement time per week, including video lectures, and quizzes. The ordering of the modules within the course is designed to be flexible. In particular, students can watch the videos in whatever order suits their experience and needs, e.g., they may want to watch the unit testing videos prior to the software pattern videos if they prefer to learn about unit testing first.
COURSE 5
Capstone MOOC for "Android App Development"
Upcoming session: Jul 24 — Aug 28.
Subtitles
English
About the Capstone Project
The Capstone project integrates material from throughout the Android App Development Specialization to exercise and assess the ability of learners to create an interesting Android app. Learners will apply knowledge and skills learned in previous MOOCs in this Specialization, including Java programming features; Android activity, broadcast receiver, service, and content provider (plus SQLite) components; and unit, integration, and user interface testing. The project itself is similar in scope to previous assignments in the earlier MOOCs in the Specialization. However, it is intentionally designed to enable learners to create a customized app that demonstrates their creativity and mastery of the Specialization topics.

Creators

Vanderbilt University, an internationally recognized research and teaching university, provides a gateway to greatness drawing the brightest students from across the nation and around the world.
Vanderbilt University, located in Nashville, Tenn., is a private research university and medical center offering a full-range of undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees.

Dr. Douglas C. Schmidt
Professor of Computer Science and Associate Chair of the Computer Science and Engineering Program
Dr. Jerry Roth
Associate Professor of the Practice
Michael Walker
Instructor - Graduate Student pursuing PhD in Computer Science
Dr. C. Jules White
Assistant Professor of Computer Science
Dr. Julie L. Johnson
Instructor