How To Update Ibook "Intro To App Development With Swift"

Coming back from pedagogy abroad with no job lined up, I knew I'd accept to be patient. I was content with this, excited even, that I'd have time to work on my own projects (similar this) and to focus on finding something great. The challenge I put myself upwards to solidified an interest I had for education technology. I became inspired and looked forrad to a futurity career where I'd exist able to share this passion. But afterwards only three weeks in I began to experience a gnawing sense of social guilt and personal impatience.

What was I doing beingness 27 and unemployed?

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I started looking into educational activity jobs as these self-witting thoughts kicked in, I didn't even stop to question if this is what I needed right now. Alas, none of the nearby boards were looking to add together to their supply teachers listing. No surprise at that place. I turned to private schools, but no luck. Friends said to me, "you lot take such great experiences," it must be piece of cake for yous to detect a pedagogy chore now. I did Experience accomplished and capable, teaching internationally and working with tech in the past helped me develop a lot as an educator and I felt like I had a lot to bring into Toronto classrooms. But perchance I didn't do enough AQs, maybe I didn't practice my time right, should I but fork up the money and go back to school again? More self doubt followed. In an try to fill in the answer "so what are you lot doing now?" with what I assumed was a socially adequate response ("I'm teaching at___", "I'm working at___", "I'm going to get-go my Masters at ___"), I started craving for work, any piece of work. I began chore hunting aggressively, at times meaninglessly, for something that would satisfy this peckish. To my dismay, that didn't work either (thankfully). There were a few positions that I was excited about and didn't get and others that I convinced myself to get excited about and also didn't get. At the fourth dimension I thought I was ready for anything new. I didn't think it'd matter to me whether or not information technology was related to education. Companies totally saw that my heart was somewhere else before I even realized it myself.

After finishing the last of the Intro to App Development book I paused my regular cycle of aggressive job-hunting, twice a solar day Muay Thai (which was actually awesome), and coding. I took a break from social media, particularly my KaceCodes Twitter account, because it was causing me more feet than inspiration. I spent a few days reconnecting with old friends and realized they weren't judging me, I welcomed my brother domicile who I had not seen for over a year since I left for Iceland/Beijing and he left for Cali, and I built an awesome pillow fort with my ii nephews.

And so I bandaged what had felt like a billion bullets to my ego, and I mustered the confidence to reiterate what I've ever known, just needed desperately to be reminded:

i. I'm lucky to have the opportunity to be unemployed and healthy and to be able to "explore" career options. I got to enjoy the residuum of the summertime sun in a metropolis that I love more than than ever, coding in my favourite Toronto cafes and reading programming and non-programming books in metropolis parks. I take the time and timezone to finally hang out with friends and family unit. Life is good.

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two. I'1000 lucky to have had the opportunity to travel and teach abroad. I'chiliad grateful for the students who taught me how to exist a better teacher, for the lifelong friendships I've made along the way, for the beautiful countries that welcomed me. I've go who I am considering of it and I should never regret those experiences. Life is good.

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three. I will always be a teacher, whether or not I'm in a classroom. The things I dearest virtually educational activity—being open-minded, always learning, being people focused, jubilant inventiveness—are me. In the same mode that a company judges whether or not I fit the company, I have the right to judge whether a visitor suits me.

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4. Remember to stay humble. I'g not entitled to anything, if I desire something then I've got to put in the work for it, be prepared, exist ready to "fail" once more.

I had this week of peace and I was ready to first my search once more, with more focus and self-sensation. By some heavenly coincidence that Friday afternoon I was also contacted by three companies I was super interested in near within the same hour. While I still don't know if I'll terminate upwards at any of them, I was grateful to stop the week on a hopeful note.

…

So, next step?

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My goal is to incorporate the ii things I love, education and engineering science, and at the cease of the day I desire to feel similar making a divergence in people'southward lives. I'd love to create something or be role of something that can give students better opportunities to learn. I can be in a classroom, but I tin as well back up learners from outside the classroom. AND, I'g probably going to keep learning/practicing Swift by building something on my ain also 😉

In an older post I mentioned my showtime feel coding in Xcode and building an app, I commented on how the experience was intimidating. It's true that app evolution and learning Swift each demand their own prepare of knowledge and skills, forth with the ability to work the 2 together. Apple tree's "App Evolution with Swift" course content reflects this distinction:

-Excerpt From: Apple Education. "App Evolution with Swift." Apple Inc. – Education, 2017.

Introducing the distinction early on has been useful because it's planted a seed to begin thinking nearly what it means to develop using a programming language… So I finally know what an enum is and I can solve simple give-and-take problems, only how and when would I use an enum to make an app?

The "Intro to App Development with Swift" includes guided opportunities to practice app development using the basic Swift syntax learned. Merely like the lessons that focus specifically on Swift concepts, these mini app projects build upon one another, giving a scrap more autonomy and demanding more than endeavor as the grade progresses. There is always plenty guidance and reference provided to help yous complete the job.

Here's a summary of mini-projection apps included in the "Intro to App Development with Swift". Looking back on it, these lessons were my favourite and it's helped to brand app development seem a lot less intimidating, just rather a much more exciting opportunity.

Lesson v: First App
Build: An app that displays a single photo

Start thinking about how app development works
Get familiar with edifice and running an app using Xcode
Exercise using: Attributes inspector, Epitome view, Project navigator, Simulator (build app), and Storyboard

Lesson xiii: Question Bot
Build: A Question/Reply App.

Go familiar with working on app already in progress by understanding all parts of app and knowing where your office fits in
Practise writing functions (input question, output answer) and if/else statements
Exercise changing, edifice, running, and testing change
note: Y'all'll detect I was hungry for sushi on this particular afternoon…😹🍣

Lesson 17: Actions and Outlets
Build: An app that lets yous pick a color

larn how to connect an app's interface to Swift code and make it interactive
learn how to use and connect interface features like switches, sliders and buttons
the project/lesson is split into 6 parts, each involve completing a learning objective that will atomic number 82 to the completion of the app. At the end of each function, you lot accomplish a "cheque point" in which you lot run the current build to exam it.

Lesson xviii Part 1: Adaptive User Interfaces
Build: A quiz app about chemical elements

practice setting constraints and using auto-layout again. Too learn how to use, adapt, and adjust (pinnacle to lesser) stack views.
add outlets and actions (buttons and labels)
acquire how to add images to the avails catalogue and how to write code that will load the images
practise troubleshooting when the app crashes

Lesson xix Function 2: Adaptive User Interfaces
Build: An creature sounds app (with "fewer step by step instructions")

practice setting upwardly an adaptive user interface and create a stack view in a stack view (nested view)
practice adding outlets and actions (buttons and labels)
add existing sound files to the projection and reuse lawmaking to play the sounds

All this practice was groovy considering I got to recognize how the coding skills I've acquire can be applied and how different aspects of app development fit together. Whenever I tell Alex I need more practice using what I've learned, his reply is either "permit's play code wars together" or "try making something (an app)". I've already shared my fondness for CodeWars, but making my own app sounded to me similar such an extreme leap. But I guess it makes sense he would propose this, after all when he start started learning Objective-C, he jumped straight into tackling app development. I call back he learned a lot on the fly, researching and experimenting, trying to figure out ways to make his app thought come alive. I'm still learning a lot of the basics, simply I'k outset to retrieve I might need to pull out that app journal and outset making stuff 🤷‍♀️

-Kristina

As teachers we know that kids learn best with i some other and from i another…When I taught preschool in Beijing, my niggling second/third language learners were absorbing languages left and right. I had children from Republic of finland and Korea who were non only speaking to classmates in English but as well using Mandarin. Information technology was during playtime and grouping activities where their language skills got the most practice. Language development is a great example of the mode learning in general is a social experience.Social Learning has been trending since Bandura first formed the theory in the 1970s and since then information technology'south adapted to the digital age. In "Collaborative Learning for the Digital Age," Cathy North. Davidson, a professor at Duke University wrote about how mod social learning through the Cyberspace (i.due east. researching and learning from websites, social media, blogs online networking, etc.) made her course "This is Your Brain on the Internet" a more authentic, heady, and student-driven learning experience.

Today, self-study appears to exist the new trend, particularly in the programming world. Co-ordinate to this article in Quartz, 69% of developers who responded to a 2016 survey said they were at least partially self-taught, half did not have a formal CS degree. This is the stuff that ~~dreams~~ bootcamps, online courses, and micro-degrees are made of! And hey, I'm not hither to knock cocky-study, after all that's what I'm trying to do for myself..But I realize that if I'm going to success in my own cocky-study, I need to notice ways to make my solo learning more social.

I guess Davidson would insist that this had always started off as a social elearning experience, afterwards all I decided to write this public weblog and shortly afterwards I quickly jumped onto my new @kacecodes Twitter business relationship and followed the who's who of the ed tech community. It's definitely helped, simply still I was missing what every not bad social learning feel has: consistent feedback and advice, emotional support (concur me accountable, 'cause damnit I can be lazy), and the ability to collaborate. Here I recognize that there are definite benefits to taking an in-class or online course with a common cohort that I'g missing out on, merely I was interested to run into what kind of relevant communities already exist both online and offline.

First I sought online communities and discussion boards catering to beginners learning Swift programming language. Hither'southward what I constitute…

Apple tree's Developer Forum for "Educators Teaching App Development" is pretty relevant and there is actual a forum dedicated to teachers using the Everyone Can Code books in the classroom. I got excited, but so disappointed at the lack of activity:(
stackoverflow.com is a very bookmark-worthy site. I've mainly used stackoverflow Questions equally reference when solving challenging problems or when I've needed clarification. There is a lot that I don't sympathise, but I similar that I can search and filter for "beginner Swift" questions.
codenewbie.org is a cool website to support an international community of beginner coders. They take podcasts, host events (in the US :/), and have links to resource. I was looking forward to getting connected with other learners in Discourse, just while there are some encouraging discussions and talks of come across-ups, information technology wasn't very current or Swift-specific.

In addition to existence able to share data and resources, information technology's comforting to know in that location are other people out in that location who are also taking up a similar claiming of learning a programming language from scratch. It was nice to run into that I wasn't the simply newb wondering, "then where exactly do I place these curly brackets?" (thanks stackoverflow for the respond). The online communities that be are helpful but equally you lot can probably tell from my comments, I had to filter through the content and deal with much of it being sparse, outdated, not relevant, or not actually beginner-friendly.

I'm also still on the wait out for some in person meet-up based in Toronto? Whatever newbies out at that place currently learning or interested?🤷‍♀️

Do makes ~~Perfect~~
So far the most practical resources I've come across comes from the Codewars community. codewars.com is an online "coding dojo" created past coders and managed past lead users. They provide levelled challenges (katas) created by other members, starting at fundamentals (8kyu) all the way to avant-garde exercises (1kyu). When you submit your solution you can see how others have solved the same trouble and you're able to compare yours to the well-nigh effective solutions. So far its been a fun and challenging way for me to flex my programmer-encephalon and to contribute to the coding community, even equally a beginner.

Learning the foundation of Swift (being able to read and write its basic syntax) was a nice heave in confidence…the greater challenge ahead is making sure I actually retain the knowledge by practicing and applying what I've learned in different contexts. Crossing my fingers I stay on track and hopefully discover more people to learn with.

17 lessons, 3 to go.

There's no telling what will come up next, but I'm happy with my conclusion to explore coding commencement with this Intro past Apple. I wanted to start at the basics and I wanted it to be gratis. The focus of the course is to create a foundation for understanding essential Swift coding concepts that can be built upon. Y'all might not get every bit much technical cognition or be able to build crazy apps (still), but if yous want to close the distance between your knowledge and the mystery of education kids to code then it'southward a expert place to start.

____________________

Apple's arroyo to teaching Swift in the Introduction course is full of mini-narratives and analogies that compare coding concepts to everyday scenarios, like dressing up in the forenoon or tying your shoelaces. T ranslating technical terms into everyday scenarios can help teachers speak confidently most coding concepts and deliver programming lessons that are relevant to their students. The examples used in the exercises also provide inspiration for activities that can be adjusted even for the younger one-half of k-12.

This is from Lesson 7: BoogieBot

Why not develop simple algorithms with younger students by defining a series of dance steps for BoogieBot! Innovate control in a game of Simon Says or Hokey Pokey. You can arrange BoogieBot for a computer-less lesson and use students' bodies or a puppet. For older students, you tin can start to teach them how to write and read elementary functions and get them to follow the steps in a real life BoogieBot dance off😆

This practice is from Lesson 15: Structs.

Classroom Daydreammmm…

Awesome teacher👩‍🏫: "Today we are going to do an exercise to practice creating types. On each of your table is an item" (i.eastward. bringing a real shoe, a yoyo, a cookie, whatever!). With your partner you're going to brainstorm some of the properties y'all item might have. Write them on this behemothic slice of paper."

Awesome students:⁉️💭💬✍️🤗🤗⁉️💭💬

Awesome instructor👩‍🏫: "Now allow's utilize one colour to circle the properties that would remain constant (permit) and some other colour to circle the properties that could change (var)?"

Crawly students:⁉️💭💬✍️🤗🤗⁉️💭💬

Awesome teacher👩‍🏫: "Let's use the struct syntax and write out some code based on what you have discussed and written down"…

Comparing Language to Language:

The Introduction course adds a lot of useful analogies to our pedagogy toolkit🛠, and ane of the most popular comparisons made is between programming language and the English language. For beginners I retrieve this is a useful manner for students to get familiar with the syntax of writing basic Swift.

The screenshot below is from Lesson fourteen: Arrays and Loops. I added some "English translations" of the code that are written in green and marked as comments (//). This is a elementary snippet simply its just an case of the way often Swift can read similar a normal sentence.

Just every bit we write in English to communicate, lawmaking communicates every bit well. For instance, if you lot're an app developer, you communicate with dissimilar elements of the code, yous might communicate with other developers working on the same app, you lot might too take to adjust something you wrote a year agone so hopefully you've been clear! I actually like the idea of comparison (and contrasting) estimator and human languages (unfortunately I'm limited to simply English), I experience like it could inspire hot classroom discussions and trigger some critical thinking.

This case is from Lesson six: Functions. I know this wasn't efficient but I thought this would be a cool practice to integrate with discussions of poetry in the classroom. For me, Kendrick Lamar's HUMBLE. was the near recent vocal had I listened to and that's why this happened hah..but maybe yous'd cull something with less cursing for the classroom😅

Last thoughts:

When Alex commencement told me he was going to create a mobile app, I think that was the first fourth dimension I always thought about what that meant. For a second I naively imagined someone just dragging a bunch of floating images and buttons onto an iPhone screen and somehow things would but piece of work? Of class, once I actually thought about information technology, it didn't brand sense..only and then I realized I never really thought most information technology. I never stopped to think most how big ideas are brought into being. I never saw that every bit much as nosotros are manipulated and evolved by the capabilities of our computers and phones, our influence on engineering science is and should always be reciprocal and meaningful. We can assistance students explore these questions earlier.

"Technology has a language. It's called code."

Apple tree Education. "Intro to App Development with Swift." Apple Inc. – Didactics, 2017. iBooks. https://itun.es/ca/YNQgib.l

#PDforlife👩‍🏫

-Kristina

"Education depends on what teachers exercise in their classrooms, and what teachers do in their classrooms is shaped past who they are, what they believe" –Intrator, Sam

—
"Advocacy for teachers' professional autonomy is equivalent to advancement for students; passionate, creative, engaged teachers are what is best for students." –Teaching the Way We Aspire to Teach: Now and in the Future

I've been thinking.

If information technology were but almost learning to code for me I don't think I'd have started this blog, and in the same way I agree with the sentiments of Anil Dash when he wrote on Medium, "it's more than than just 'teach kids to code'".

Digital literacy skills and engineering science use in the classroom is no longer a question but a fact, People for Education reported that 79% of Ontario schools they studied were start to employ computers for learning as early as Kindergarten. It's condign more than articulate to me that the issue isn't will we need to teach it, but rather it demands deeper reflection to ensure thatwhile we teach digital skills, nosotros practise information technology with intent.

For me the entreatment of ed-tech comes mainly from the promise that new technology is "confusing" 😈. What I mean past this is that like whatsoever other industry it touches, innovative technology tin can change the pedagogy game drastically and hopefully for the better. Technology can be used every bit a tool to alleviate inequities in classroom learning experiences and give access to better opportunities in the future by supporting the learning of currently underrepresented identities in tech/Stem from a young age✌️❤️.

Blazon in a web search for ed-tech blogs or read this list and you'll run across that there are inspirational educators who are making this happen in their classroom, schools, and local/global communities. There are likewise some amazing organizations and initiatives that be to back up this goal:

👏#ladieslearningtocode and #girlslearningtocode are dedicated to equipping women and youth with technical skills (fyi. even when they are performing well in discipline like mathematics, women are nevertheless less likely than men to choose Stalk programs (StatsCan, 2015).)

👏Blackgirlscode wants to equip African American female person youths with skills they'll need for future success in STEM careers.

👏 Rumie is providing digital didactics across borders so that youth from underserved communities have greater opportunities to learn.

👏The Centre for Altitude Learning and Innovation (CDLI) is a successful virtual schoolhouse that makes learning from Department of Education approved courses accessible for rural students in Newfoundland and Labrador.

👏 Assistive technology has transformed Special Education for learners and educators, just these tools can be used to adapt all types of learner needs ( cool, huh?). I'm user and a fan of Apple's iOS assistive tech.

I honestly believe most teachers recognize diverse needs and want to be able to back up all their students.

"Teachers are faced with classrooms that are far from homogeneous; individual differences and a unique set up of needs that students bring to the learning environment represent a major claiming for their work. In the teaching to which they aspire, teachers did not express a desire to eliminate this challenge, but recognized the importance of sufficient resources. Many expressed the belief that addressing these differences and meeting the needs of every student is integral to their vision and purpose as a instructor." –Educational activity the Way We Aspire to Teach: Now and in the Hereafter

Then say y'all're like me, and you're opening up to instruction using technology as a tool to close gaps and enrich learning. Say you're already working at a school that has simply ordered a bunch of shiny new iPads. How do we do this right, with intent, in our classrooms, schools, schoolhouse districts?

"As connectivity improves, the digital divide persists in teacher preparation" –EdTech: Focus on Thou–12

"The wide variation in teachers' employ of engineering suggests at that place is an ongoing demand for high quality professional devel- opment to help teachers, peculiarly those who are not 'dig- ital natives', apply ICT to back up learning where appropriate." –People for Education

The "digital divide" as nosotros knew it (being the disparity of digital tools amongst dissimilar schools/communities) might accept changed, but the quality of instruction and teacher tech training is an outcome that presents another challenge towards disinterestedness in teaching.

👩‍🏫 #PDforlife

-Kristina

So far I've completed 5 lessons and created my beginning simple app following Apple tree's "Intro to App Development with Swift". I'm thrilled with my picayune accomplishments💪.

Lesson i is overnice and easy, it gives you an intro to Playground, the platform in Xcode that lets you lot play with code. You can experiment with the tidbits of lawmaking you lot larn throughout the lessons and problem-solve errors. Playground as well has a bang-upresults bar that you become accepted to watching update while you write…don't get attached 😔. In lesson iv I learned that this feature is not a real part of the coding experience and p.southward. bodily Xcode is much more intimidating 😱 …But we don't need to worry about that for now.

Below you can see come of the different features of Playground, including theresults bar on the right side and theconsole at the bottom:

I started my app development journey by playing effectually with Playground like a calculator, doing uncomplicated math expressions and watching the results show upward in theresults bar (this not shown in the gist below).

The best thing about these lessons is that despite the fact that I have zip programming noesis, tasks have been designed very well toscaffold learning👏 . I'll requite an example:

In Lesson 2 I began by solving a word problem where I had to update the information for the number of animals in a pet show. Easy enough, I was just filling in numbers and again using Playground as a figurer (keep in mind once again that the results show upwardly in the results bar in Playground).

	// Number Of Dogs
	six

	// Number Of Cats
	five

	// Number Of Turtles
	2

	// Number Of Hamsters
	1

	// Total Number Of Animals
	vi + five + 2 + 1

	// Full Number Of Mammals
	6 + 5 + 1

My imaginary classroom dialogue…
Awesome Student👱‍♀️: "merely information technology takes too much effort to update every single function..what'due south the point? There must be a better way"
Crawly Teacher 👩‍🏫 : "you're correct, Awesome Student, let'southward find a better mode. What kind of affair do you remember should happen?" (Crawly Teacher then introduces new terminology and how they can exist more efficient past declaring constants):

	let numberOfDogs = half-dozen + 2

	let numberOfCats = 5 – one

	let numberOfTurtles = 2 + i

	allow numberOfHamsters = 1 + 1

	let totalNumberOfAnimals = numberOfDogs + numberOfCats + numberOfTurtles + numberOfHamsters

	let totalNumberOfMammals = numberOfDogs + numberOfCats + numberOfHamsters

The parts of lessons are structured and explained so that they build upon and enrich agreement. Y'all're given accomplishable tasks to support your electric current level, room to question/fail/explore in Playground, and opportunities to acquire new knowledge and skills 👩👊.

Here'south another example with an actual dialogue between Alex and myself while I'm working onLesson 3:

	// Declare a firstName constant

	let firstName = "Kristina"

	// Declare a lastName constant

	permit lastName = "Quicho"


	// Combine the strings into a fullName constant

	allow fullName = firstName + " " + lastName

🙎‍♂️ Alex (looking over my shoulder at line 12): "Um…I don't think you should do it similar that. You should use string interpolation."
👩 Me: "Await, let me just do it this way get-go. I bet yous the next slide will bear witness me what y'all're talking nearly…"
Next adjacent slide: String Interpolation
👩 Me: "Seee?! Now I tin can appreciate this interpolation stuff"

	// Modify this to your favourite food
	allow favouriteFood = "sushi"

	// Change this to why you similar information technology
	permit reason = "num nums"

	// Define a string below in the pattern "I like ___ considering it is ___."

	let favouriteFoodReason = "I like \(favouriteFood) because information technology is \(reason)"

"I like sushi because it is num nums"…truth 🍣 ❤️

"Computers and programmers take a history of irresolute the world, from computers the size of a room to the 32 kg calculator that guided the starting time moon landing to the millions of mobile devices people carry in their  pockets every twenty-four hour period. During that history, programmers have participated in  a fun tradition—a sort of ceremony that welcomes all new coders to the globe of programming.
Now that you've had a chance to write some code, it's fourth dimension to get set  for that tradition."-Excerpt From: Apple Instruction. "Intro to App Development with Swift." Apple Inc. – Education, 2017. iBooks. https://itun.es/ca/YNQgib.l (Lesson 4)

InLesson 4 I got to feel going without the results bar and was introduced to theconsole.I participated in tradition and I got to print control the inaugural string of code, saying "Hello, Globe" to the programming world! 😁🙌 I was told to become ahead and take a selfie with my screen, and so I did!

"YAY!"

Lesson 5is when I got to create my get-go app projection in Xcode. Equally I mentioned earlier, Xcode is a more intimidating place merely it turned out simply fine in the cease. I really call back it'll just exist a matter of do. I'll share my projection in my next post.

For now, some thoughts 🤔…

I'm feeling pretty adept virtually all of this. I'm agreement more why educational activity students to lawmaking is non but an important function of 21st century didactics but I think all hesitant teachers might feel relief to learn what I have begun to, that coding skills compliment a lot of what we already teach, such as math sequencing and patterning skills or the ability to use language effectively like when defining constants.

As a result of this new learning investment, I also notice myself Googling similar crazy to notice more resources related to coding in the classroom. I'll probably end up writing about this at some indicate only I wanted to share the following paragraph. I came beyond a list of coding apps for kids and eventually plant ScratchJr, an introductory programming language for young kids backed by MIT, and I really dig the developers' opinion on teaching coding:

"Coding (or computer programming) is a new blazon of literacy. Just every bit writing helps you lot organize your thinking and express your ideas, the same is truthful for coding. In the past, coding was seen every bit also difficult for near people. Only we think coding should be for everyone, only like writing.

As immature children code with ScratchJr, they larn how to create and limited themselves with the computer, not just to collaborate with it. In the process, children larn to solve bug and pattern projects, and they develop sequencing skills that are foundational for later academic success. They also utilize math and linguistic communication in a meaningful and motivating context, supporting the development of early-childhood numeracy and literacy." – SratchJr (download the gratuitous ScratchJr app)

Computer programming=new age literacy😲🗯 🌋

"I'm so computer illiterate"–ever heard someone say that? Maybe in the by, but not so much anymore. It seems like more children begin to acquire how to employ smartphones and tablets at a young historic period (even if its but learning how to take a selfie with mommy or play games on daddy'due south iPhone). Children are already condign figurer literate; they begin to communicate with computers, pressing commands, swiping correct and left, getting a response. Then how do we push button this literacy evolution farther? When students develop literacy skills for reading and writing we want them to besides larn critical thinking and advice skills. Therefore, if computer programming is literacy, then learning to code volition also help students sympathise how and why a calculator communicates and volition allow them to respond in critical and creative ways.

Feeling excited likewise? Why non learn with me😉!

-Kristina

For the past few years I've been bankroll the utilize of technology in classrooms of both younger and older students. It seems the educational activity world is shedding the stigma effectually students owning their own cellphones and finally accepting reality. We are beginning to teach students how to communicate with engineering in a meaningful way; to create, rather than merely becoming more snap-chatting, angry-bird flinging users.

So why am I learning to code?
I demand to put my money where my oral cavity is. I'k a believer in ed-tech but among the wave of resources that have come up out in the last few years, I feel liked I've merely dipped my toes in the puddle. If I believe teachers should teach skills like coding, and if I believe that fifty-fifty young schoolhouse students can kickoff learning to lawmaking, and then it is fourth dimension to turn this thought into a reality. I'chiliad putting myself up to the challenge and learning a programming language: Swift (for iOS, OS X, watchOS and tvOS).

Why now? Why Swift?
Well-nigh a year ago I picked up a beginner's guide to programming and I was told "information technology will be confusing just just power through it". Equally a complete newbie to the world of computer languages I was discouraged past the terminology, I felt like my brain wasn't wired to handle this type of learning and I gave up.

Recently, I found Apple'south "Anybody Can Lawmaking" series on iBooks (costless to download). My familiarity with Apple tree hardware and software is the main reason why I chose Swift. Plus, as a teacher I appreciated Apple's attending to education and in that location already exists tons of resource (like this one) on Apple's website and in iTunes if you do some digging. I decided to give information technology another shot and I'thou hoping that Apple's arroyo to teaching Swift will be easier to understand.

Every bit an added bonus, it also helps that I live with my very own Swift "Ask Siri". Alex has been using Swift to create iOS apps for for years, and now he does this for a living. He also began with no figurer science background, only he did a ton of his own research, ordered a bunch of heavy old books off Amazon, and fought his way through the learning curve until he became a pretty damn good iOS developer. He says that if he had resource like the ones available now, his learning experience at the outset could have been a lot easier.

My goal?
I don't intend on becoming a developer, I'one thousand more than interested about the process of learning this new skill from someone with no calculator science background; someone who barely knows HTML. I'thousand going to be writing about my experience as a learner while also thinking near the ways in which this resource can be used in a classroom. I'll start with the tools I have on paw and go from there…:)

Desire to learn with me?Here are the resources I'k starting with:

1. My MacBook with the updated Bone (Sierra).
2. Apple tree's "Everyone Tin can Code" serial available free on the iBooks Store. I don't know how many of them I'll really use simply I've downloaded all 8. The Swift Playgrounds books wait actually interesting because they seem geared towards younger learners, using the Playground iPad app to provide an even more interactive "touch on" approach to educational activity and learning Swift. Sounds cool, I'll check them out later.
For now I'm using the Teacher and Educatee Guide for "Intro to App Evolution with Swift" in guild to have a better agreement of how it would be applied in a classroom setting.
3. Xcode viii, where all the magic volition happen.
4. Playground projection files for Apple tree's "App Evolution Curriculum" (downloadable link on the "Getting Started" Page in the "Intro to App Development" volume.
5. A notebook/the Notes app for my "app journaling".
6. A GitHub account. I had no idea what to do with this merely Alex insisted I'd need it. I did the ten minute tutorial on the website and it gave me a pretty overnice overview. Below you'll see I've used the Gist characteristic:)