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Apple Introduces Teachers to Coding at Summer Workshops

Wednesday August 7, 2019 5:56 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple today highlighted various app prototypes that educators came up with during five weeklong Teacher Coding Academies it held this summer. The workshops were part of Apple's Community Education Initiative, which introduces coding opportunities to underrepresented communities across the United States.


Educators from nearly 70 institutions attended the first of these academies in Houston, Austin, Boise, Nashville, and Columbus, according to Apple, presenting prototypes of their apps to various community organizations. Together, the educators and community organizations plan to continue working on the apps.

Examples:
In Boise, the teachers designed an app to help the police department better serve and communicate with the city's homeless population, connecting the community to open shelter beds and food banks.

In Austin, teachers focused on Ronald McDonald House, a charity that provides housing for families whose children are receiving critical medical care. In this case, they created an app prototype to help families communicate with the charity during their stay.

And in Columbus, the educators devised an app that helps firefighters log and monitor the amount of time they were exposed to dangerous carcinogens while on the job.
Learn more about the educators and their app prototypes on the Apple Newsroom.

Tag: Everyone Can Code
[ 18 comments ]


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NMBob
2 weeks ago
If I’d have known it was that quick and easy to write software I wouldn’t have worked so hard to figure out how to do it these last 40 years.
Rating: 7 Votes
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miniyou64
2 weeks ago
I don’t get this obsession with having every industry perfectly represented with exact race and gender demographics. People who are interested in it, follow certain careeer paths. It’s not that complicated.
Rating: 1 Votes
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Winni
2 weeks ago

Had to take it for 2 semesters at my university, 5 to actually pass it and I still don’t get it. Coding is one of those things you either get and are passionate about or you don’t get it at all


It might not be popular, but some time last year a scientific study was published that revealed that for various reasons around 2/3 of the human population will never be able to learn how to code, simply because the human brain was not made to deal with the specific kind of abstract logic that is needed to write software -- this way of thinking has no application in "real world" problems and scenarios and thus is basically useless.
[doublepost=1565186582][/doublepost]

Oh the wonders of Swift.


Oh the wonders of Python.

Or even modern(!!!) BASIC dialects, for that matter.
Rating: 1 Votes
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CarlJ
1 week ago

When I see articles like this I'm just reminded how lacking the individuals are that are responsible to prepare the next generation. It's great that these groups actively sought out an expansion to their skills - that alone probably puts them well above the curve of educators as a whole - but it makes me sad we don't have a higher caliber group of people tasked with such an important mission.

The teachers I've met at my nieces primary school have been uniformly great at teaching the grades they're responsible for, though none of them are software developers. Our society doesn't value teachers as highly as it should, given their role in shaping the future of our society - for one, they ought to be paid considerably more than they are (that would attract the higher caliber candidates you want), but we also need to fund schools better than we're doing now - there are thousands of stories out there about teachers having to buy supplies for their classrooms out of their own pocket, because the school can't supply basic needs.

Teaching is a skill for which one can have (or not have) an aptitude, just as software development is - I think I'd rather have us teach good teachers how to program (knowing that not all will get it), than teach software developers how to teach (I imagine there might be a higher failure rate there).
Rating: 1 Votes
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gplusplus
1 week ago
“Coding” on an iDevice. How cute.
Rating: 1 Votes
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MacUser09425
2 weeks ago

Had to take it for 2 semesters at my university, 5 to actually pass it and I still don’t get it. Coding is one of those things you either get and are passionate about or you don’t get it at all

Exactly! I’m not against these efforts - but Tech companies need graphic designers, UX people, marketing, project managers. You don’t have to be too cynical to think this is all about the $$$$ - there’s resentment that too many white males (and congrats to Asian males - they lump you in too) are making big money writing apps.
Rating: 1 Votes
Avatar
NMBob
2 weeks ago

Had to take it for 2 semesters at my university, 5 to actually pass it and I still don’t get it. Coding is one of those things you either get and are passionate about or you don’t get it at all


It helps to be as dumb as a computer. :) I got started on the ground floor in the 70's when you had to have an idea about what was going on under the hood (or bonnet). If I started now it would all just seem like magic, and I probably wouldn't get it, either.
Rating: 1 Votes
Avatar
itsmilo
2 weeks ago
Had to take it for 2 semesters at my university, 5 to actually pass it and I still don’t get it. Coding is one of those things you either get and are passionate about or you don’t get it at all
Rating: 1 Votes
Avatar
FontGeek
2 weeks ago

If I’d have known it was that quick and easy to write software I wouldn’t have worked so hard to figure out how to do it these last 40 years.


Oh the wonders of Swift.
Rating: 1 Votes

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