Apple adds new tools for coding programs and resources to help teachers, students

Apple has announced a new set of tools that will help educators teach coding to students right from grade school up to college. The company has also added some significant enhancements to the Develop in Swift and Everyone Can Code curricula and is also starting a new professional learning course for Develop in Swift for the teachers for free.

This course is designed to help teachers of all skill levels build foundational knowledge for app development with Swift.

“Apple has worked alongside educators for 40 years, and we’re especially proud to see how Develop in Swift and Everyone Can Code have been instrumental in helping teachers and students make an impact in their communities,” said Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of Markets, Apps, and Services.

“We’ve seen community college students build food security apps for their campus and watched middle school educators host virtual coding clubs over summer break. As part of our commitment to help expand access to computer science education, we are thrilled to be adding a new professional learning course to help more educators, regardless of their experience, have the opportunity to learn coding and teach the next generation of developers and designers.”

Develop in Swift is geared towards high school and higher education students and teaches both Swift and Xcode on Mac. While Develop in Swift is slightly advanced, Everyone Can Code is meant for new students starting off. Everyone Can Code introduces coding to students in grades 4 through 8 and uses puzzles and games to help teach the building blocks of Swift through the Swift Playgrounds app.

The Develop in Swift curriculum has been completely redesigned to meet student learning styles, based on educator input. The new series includes four books: “Develop in Swift Explorations,” “Develop in Swift AP CS Principles,” and “Develop in Swift Fundamentals”. There is also the “Develop in Swift Data Collections” which will be available this fall. All this is available free in Apple Books.

Apple is also releasing the next set of books in its Everyone Can Code curriculum. “Everyone Can Code Adventures” is designed for students who have already completed “Everyone Can Code Puzzles” and offers more advanced opportunities to build with Swift code. The “Everyone Can Code Adventures” student and teacher guides are available for free in Apple Books.

To support parents with kids learning to code at home, Apple has added a new guide to its set of remote learning resources and “A Quick Start to Code” is now available and features 10 coding challenges designed for learners ages 10 and up, on iPad or Mac.