Apple Launches New Educational Curricula for Develop in Swift and Everyone Can Code

Thursday July 9, 2020 7:12 am PDT by Eric Slivka

Apple today announced significant enhancements for its Develop in Swift and Everyone Can Code educational programs, delivering free curricula and a new Develop in Swift online course to help teachers get up to speed for teaching app development in Swift.

apple coding programs jul2020

“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, which is aimed at students in high school and above, has seen its curriculum completely redesigned and includes four free books available through Apple Books: "Develop in Swift Explorations," "Develop in Swift AP CS Principles," "Develop in Swift Fundamentals," and "Develop in Swift Data Collections," with the first three available now and the fourth coming this fall.

For younger students and other beginners, Apple is also expanding its Everyone Can Code curriculum, launching a new "Everyone Can Code Adventures" book that builds on previous content in the program to allow for more advanced coding exercises using Swift Playgrounds.

Tags: Develop in Swift, Everyone Can Code

Top Rated Comments

D.T.

75 months ago

Like I've said in the past (usually in the context of this sort of article), I believe there's a solid benefit for kids outside of pursuing a software developer occupation. If you look at it in abstract:

- Clearly defining the goals or problem, assigning tasks (if in a team)
- Constructing a solution using a specific set of rules and tools
- Identifying and documenting issues (repeat)

That could be a banker, a coach, a mechanic, a doctor, etc.

I'm kind of excited (she is too), our little G is taking a programming class this coming year (7th grade), she's going all virtual next year as part of a county program (they recently had all sorts of accolades, so we signed her up early given the current world situation ...), anyway, she had to drop drama, and decided to replace it with this :) She's into art, photography, and recently started doing some 3D design, so she showed some interest in understanding some of the nuts and bolts of how something like a game works (I'm a dev/architect/writer, so we chat about tech quite a bit).

Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)

TMRJIJ

75 months ago

When I see the phrase “everyone can code” I think of the movie Ratatouille and I’ll modify the quote a bit:

In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Apple’s code mantra: Anyone can code. But I realize, only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great coder or have a career in it, but a great coder can come from anywhere.

This mediocre coder agrees with that sentiment

Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)

CarlJ

75 months ago

Ah yes, teach everyone to code so that programmers become the welders and machinist of tomorrow.

From a big business stand point it sounds like they want to saturate the programmer job market so they don’t have to pay 6 figure salaries to 22 year olds fresh out of college

Eh, everyone having a little exposure to programming is a good thing (even if it just helps them think a little more logically). It takes aptitude and lots of practice to get really good at it. Saying “everyone can cook” isn’t about trying to put chefs out of business, just as, oh, say, “everyone can swim” isn’t about putting Olympic swimmers out of business. I’ll never be an Olympic swimmer, but I enjoy swimming, I glad I know how to swim, and it’s good exercise.

Having everyone be able to think more rationally and logically can only benefit the world, and there will be a handful who discover they’re truly passionate about coding and have a knack for it. Those ones should become developers. One of them may someway write a program you really enjoy.

Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)

nwcs

75 months ago

When I see the phrase “everyone can code” I think of the movie Ratatouille and I’ll modify the quote a bit:

In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Apple’s code mantra: Anyone can code. But I realize, only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great coder or have a career in it, but a great coder can come from anywhere.

Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)