GlideApps - A mobile application generator without code

GlideApps - Kézako?

GlideApps is an online platform that instantly transforms data from spreadsheets (Google Sheet, Excel) into mobile apps that fit on iOS, Android, phones and tablets.

Building is a breeze. Glide doesn't offer a complicated visual editor, just scalable visual blocks to display data and make it interactive with drag and drop. Instant updating. Changes to data immediately update the application.

Customizing the app once complete, it can be added to our home screen for access at any time and shared with anyone as a QR code to scan or via a simple link.

Small apps. Great features

• Modern themes: You don't need to be a designer to create a beautiful app.
• User profiles: Data is stored in a user's profile to customize the experience.
• Customized actions: Ability to chain multiple steps with logical conditions.
• Spreadsheet synchronization : Data resides in Google Spreadsheet, while keeping everything collaborative.
• Tablet mode : Apps automatically expand when opened on larger screens.
• Open collaboration : Ability to add collaborators to work on apps together.

How it works?

Johann Nallet, a History-Geography teacher at the Gémozac middle school, offers a whole series of video tutorials to help us in the use of the GlideApps application with the aim of allowing us to create our own mobile applications using a simple Google Sheet spreadsheet.

GlideApps Tutorial 1 - Introducing the app and how it works

GlideApps Tutorial 2 - Creating the Google Sheet Database

GlideApps Tutorial 3 - Creating and Organizing the Application in GlideApps

GlideApps Tutorial 4 - Integrating the app into a smartphone

Feedback

Nathalie Coudouré

On the occasion of the 17th Ludovia University in 2020, Nathalie Coudoré English teacher at the François Camel vocational high school in Saint-Girons (Ariège), presented a workshop "Creating a phone app with GlideApps in LV". She explained that during the lockdown due to COVID-19, she decided to design a tool that would allow her students to be able to access educational content even with limited digital means.

So, using GlideApps, she built a tool that each student can install on their phone that materializes the link with the teacher. In her LV app, students thus have access to:

• Contact information (email, social networks, ENT, etc.)
• Work instructions
• Schedule of the work to be done so that students can organize themselves
• Links to online tools to work in languages independently
• A chat to be able to exchange with her
• An email link to send the work
• Assignments to be done in languages (IZI.Travel audioguides, scavenger hunts in the house, recipes to be made, etc.)

Given the ease of use of Glide, she even suggests offering it to learners so that they can create various applications themselves (review sheets, guided tours, guides to vocational streams, presentations of foreign countries, etc.).

Here's the link to her application: http://nxezn.glideapp.io/

Johann Nallet

Johann Nallet, a History-Geography teacher at the Gémozac middle school, meanwhile designed an educational activity with GlideApps as part of an EMC chapter titled "Freedom & Security" in the 4th grade. The objective was to build a body of information and good habits to adopt on the Internet. To do this, his students worked in pairs on 15 different topics around the theme "Freedom and Security on the Internet":

• Research for information on the Internet from sitographies provided,
• Writing a small summary on the subject including some advice,
• Preparing 3 questions in MCQs,
• And possibly, researching a video and an image to illustrate each topic.

He then agglomerated all of his students' productions to form a GlideApps application on the topic "Internet Freedom and Safety" associated with a general quiz. The application was then used in class. For more details on his activity, I invite you to consult "GlideApps - Realization of a smartphone application to highlight collaborative student work (EMC)" in the educational space of the Académie de Poitiers.

Here is the link to her app: https://u6wai.glideapp.io/

Mallory Monhard

Mallory Monhard (M@llory's class), teacher at Villeneuve-de-Marc elementary school (Isère), at the back-to-school meeting (2019) as for her, she decided to create an application with GlideApps for parents that would gather everything that appears on the welcome booklet (contact information, school vacation calendars, timetable, explanation of how the class works, homework tips, class primer, etc.) in an effort to limit excessive photocopying.

Here is the link to her app: https://classecm.glideapp.io/

My review of GlideApps

In the end, GlideApps proves to be a breeze to use. After a little, much needed, getting used to it, you discover the full potential of Glide. The tool has a very convenient design interface although it is entirely in English.

The fluidity between the passage of the spreadsheet and the application is quite bluffing as well as the possibilities then of customization.

However, depending on your intentions and goals, designing an app using GlideApps can quickly become very tedious. I therefore invite you to follow Johann Nallet's advice and anticipate the spreadsheet part by creating a text file gathering all the themes and contents you want for your Glide app. This will save a lot of time.

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