I’m Going Mobile: Teaching Freshmen Business Students Mobile Application Development

IS enrollment has been declining in recent years. In an attempt to introduce key Information Systems concepts to freshmen business students in a fun and engaging way, we introduced a mobile application design project that recently allowed them to develop a live application on real smartphones. While going through this process, students learned some of the basic tenets of the discipline of Information Systems while simultaneously realizing the relevance and applicability to their future lives as 21st Century professionals. In this paper, we outline the core course progression for a typical Information Systems department, detail the process through which we engaged the students, and confirm our assertions through textual analysis of self-reported comments on their experience with this mobile application project