New Apple course shows educators how to teach coding with Swift and Xcode

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Apple-in-school
A new course taught by Apple will help educators learn to teach Swift and Xcode.
Photo: Apple

Apple on Thursday unveiled a free course to train educators to teach others how to program in Swift and Xcode, tools used to write apps for iPhone and Mac.

In addition, Apple improved its Develop in Swift and Everyone Can Code curricula. And it’s adding new remote learning resources for parents and teachers educating children at home.

Learn to teach Swift and Xcode

“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,” said Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of Markets, Apps, and Services, in a statement.

The new, free online professional learning course for educators will be taught by Apple experts. It’s intended to help instructors at all levels of ability get the skills they need to teach Swift and Xcode.

Apple is taking signups today. This introductory course will be available July 13.

Enhancements for ‘Develop in Swift’ and ‘Everyone Can Code’ curricula

Apple’s “Everyone Can Code” introduces software development to students in grades 4 through 8 using puzzles and games. It even works on younger children. On Thursday, Apple introduced a new set of books. “Everyone Can Code Adventures” is designed for students who have already completed “Everyone Can Code Puzzles.”

“Develop in Swift” is geared toward high school and higher education students. Obviously, it teaches Swift, an open-source programming language designed by Apple, but it also introduces students to Xcode on Mac.

Its curriculum has been redesigned based on educator input. It now includes four books: “Develop in Swift Explorations,” “Develop in Swift AP CS Principles,” and “Develop in Swift Fundamentals,” which are all available today. “Develop in Swift Data Collections” will be available this fall. All are free.

And to support parents with kids learning to code at home, Apple added “A Quick Start to Code”  to its remote-learning tools. It features 10 coding challenges designed for children ages 10 and up, on iPad or Mac. Additional resources are available on Apple’s new Learning from Home website.

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