“Building a Simple App for Android” Workshop

Last year, my GSAC team held our first Android Workshop entitled “Building a Simple App for Android” exactly on Monday, April 6th 2014 at Indomaret point. It was located beside of Campus J1 of Gunadarma University. The workshop was free and opened to all of student of Gunadarma University. The instructor of this workshop was me as GSA Gunadarma accompanied with Ai Nenden Triana as speaker of GSAC Community. The workshop participants numbered 16 (sixteen) persons who came from various study program such as Informatics Engineering (TI), Informatics Management (MI), Information System (SI), and Computer System (SK). We also invited BUC (Bekasi Urban City) team as our media partner of this workshop. They covered all our activities when the workshop was ongoing. This workshop was our last event which held by GSA (Google Student Ambassador) Gunadarma batch 2013-2014.

The workshop material was steps how to build own simple Android apps using Eclipse SDK (Software Developer Kit) integrated with Android ADT. The App would have one input from text box with many output consisted of Text, Dialogue, Toast, Text-to-Speech Voice, and share the input text by other apps. The app could be run either on their phone or on their PC simulator. We were not only studying the program’s code, but also studying how to use “string” in Android that would facilitate us if they wanted to translate the app’s text into other language, modified the app’s interface by “.xml” editing, and configured any Activity in Android Manifest. The goal of this workshop besides promoting Android as Google products, we also expected through this workshop the participants could get their alternative reference for their science report (PI) especially for student class 3 from TI, SI, and MI program.

As our first workshop, it must be hard. We faced some obstacles due to lack preparation. We had insufficient time because it was held for two half hour only (2 pm to 4.30 pm). Moreover, Mostly participant are really beginner of Android programming (evidently, most participants came from class 1 and 2). So, many time was wasted just for installing and telling them about basic of Android (Basically derived from Java programming).  Although it was so hard, we felt so glad because all participants finally understood with basic manipulation of Android programming. It would be our valuable experience in preparing to hold any educative event in next time. We would like to say biggest thanks to GSAC team as the workshop committee and BUC team as our media partner. We never forget appreciating the participant’s attendance to our workshop. So, we gave the workshop material to them directly through flashdisk and gave them electronic certificate to their email later. 

If you interest and want to get this workshop material, you can download it here. If you want to see our workshop activity, you can see it here. I hope this material can help you to understand and more interesting about basic Android programming. Thanks for coming.

Google Apps For Education Summit 2014 event

Google Apps For Education (GAFE) Summit 2014 was held by Google Indonesia in Thursday, December 4th, 2014 at The Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture building, Jakarta. Actually it was firstly held to introduce Google Apps projects to all educational institutions such as High Schools or Universities in Indonesia for education purpose. Through this event we expected they would be interested to establish GAFE system into their school’s education system. The participants were consisted of the school headmasters and the school IT experts who role as school stakeholder on their education system. 

I was invited by Kibar (official Google Indonesia’s EO) via Gmail as volunteer to be one of that event commitee. I got job to prepare breakout session at 2nd floor which begun at 2 PM after seminar session. The breakout session was the main session because through this session Google Developer teams would present their GAFE system to the School IT Expert. Suddenly, I really interested with that offer and I agree directly to enlist by filling any form.

I went to that event in early morning exactly at 6 AM by Bus from my home. Then, I arrived to there at 9 AM. Before starting the event, we gathered to get our job desc and ensured that we had understood about the event schedule. After that, we went to each postition and I got demo booth that located at beside of main hall. I stood there to help other commitee to explain Google Apps description while waiting for my session at 2 PM later. I met with a lot people both local and foreigner when standing at demo booth. I explained all of Google Apps function as I know to them. If to local people I can explain by Indonesia languange but if to foreigner I must explain by English. Fortunately, I can hold that well although still got little trouble with grammar, hahaha. Next I did that job until luch break session. 

After praying Dzuhur and having lunch, I went directly to 2nd floor for preparing Breakout session. I had asked to the speakers, Yomi Oyesiku and Devan Mitchem about the preparation later. And then I thought everything was prepared well and the Breakout session could be started.

When Breakout would be started, I surprised because my collegemate was also the participant. He is Teguh was class KB06. I had just met him because he left his study for seeking jobs and he is IT expert in STIAMI now. I asked to him to go home together after the event had finished. After the breakout session was end, I got the chance to take photo with the speakers and making some conversation about get career in Google. Yomi as one of the speaker advised me to don’t focus on Google ony, but also try other office. While seeking jobs, we should take part to any community as volunteer because it will help us increasing our career value. I said biggest thanks to his advice. I went directly to 1st floor to pray Ashar and maghrib before going to home with Teguh.

I really thanked god with current chance, get new experiences and met with old friend. While in driving to home by car, I was talking everything about campus situation with Teguh. We discussed about campus and his career experiences. He also advised me to keep my study well before graduating as my responsibility to my parent. Finally, we arrived at Jatibening toll and we said goodbye to each other after exchanging our contact to always keep in touch.