Learning to iProgram

Most professors disapprove of students using their cell phones in class. Some require it.

As part of a new computer science course introduced this semester, students create applications for the iPhone and other smartphones that could become available for the entire campus community. But it's much more than a simple iPhone application tutorial, said professor Adam Porter; it's about exploring the limits of mobile platforms.

"We don't view this course as being ‘just about iPhones,'" said Porter, who teaches the new course. Students in the class will be building "cutting-edge applications that currently don't exist anywhere in the world."

The course — CMSC498I, Programming the iPhone — is taught by two computer science professors and an Apple employee who helped develop the company's smartphone brainchild.

"It's critical for the university to have a class in smart phones, or other smaller, personal computing devices," said Joe Elwell, a student in the course who is creating a music application. "It has to find ways to expose students to the newest, most important technologies as they appear."

The unconventional course has attracted some non-traditional students. Elwell, for example, is a professional with some 30 years in the computer programming business, and he said classes that will let his fellow students directly apply their new app knowledge to a cutting-edge field upon graduation will be valuable.

Most of the course is dedicated to programming a collection of small apps assigned by Chuck Pisula, the Apple employee, Elwell said. As his big semester group project, he is helping develop a music-creation application — "sort of like a mini Garage Band."

The class is working with the university Office of Information Technology's Mobility Initiative; OIT helps develop ideas for applications that the campus community could benefit from. The Initiative's website describes its purpose of examining the role mobile Internet access devices could have in "the future of instruction, learning and the social growth of students on-campus."

The course's professors have been working with the Mobility Initiative to develop ideas for applications students can program for smartphones that will aid everyone at the university.

Elwell said he hopes this course will be just the first of many for the university.

Some other universities, such as Stanford, have been doing this for several years, he said. A full "iStanford" application suite lets students there easily access maps, transit information and class schedules.

And if there's an "iMaryland" in this university's future, Elwell said he'd be first in line to help make it happen.

"We have a great computer science department, so I know we could do even better than [Stanford]," he said. "And it would be a huge asset to the school."

farrell@umdbk.com