App development with Swift - Everyone CAN Code!

Everyone Can Code! This was very evident after attending 'Design and Develop with Swift' with APLS Steph Worladge in Aotearoa New Zealand this week.

Steph showed us how to bring app development to life in the classroom, working through the Challenge Based Learning framework to ideate solutions to real world problems and then using the app development cycle to bring ideas to life, creating working solutions! 

The highlight for me, was getting hands on with Swift to create my own app! We used a workbook that Steph had created - guiding us through coding an app for tourists that would showcase places to visit in our country and help learn to speak some simple Māori words and phrases.  While at times I felt I was leaping straight into the deep end, I experienced the pure joy and empowerment that I could actually code something real and tangible! These are the kind of experiences we want for our students!

We had students as young as 11 yrs taking part, who had no trouble keeping up with the adults in the room 😉. I just love the fact that as educators, we have a wealth of resources and scaffolds that we can draw upon to provide our students with the opportunity to learn to code and to be empowered to design and develop app solutions for the future! As teachers, we don't have to be the experts - we can have fun learning alongside our students.

During our workshop, we addressed the debate around whether or not students need to learn to code in today's world, given we have AI tools that can do the coding for us. The conclusion we came to was that AI can certainly improve our efficiency, help us generate ideas and save us a lot of time in the process - but we still need to have a fundamental understanding of how to code in order to effectively prompt AI's assistance and to be able to critically evaluate output.

As an educator I feel more motivated than ever to utilise the amazing teaching and learning resources that have been created for us, making learning to code and app development accessible for all learners!

Here are just some of the teaching and learning resources that Steph shared with us:

Everyone Can Code Projects - within our Learning Centre. I have used these with my students before, as young as 10yrs. The Design a Simple App project is a great introduction to the design process and app prototyping with Keynote. The Build with Stacks and Shapes project is a fantastic way to learn how to code app screens using stacks, shapes and modifiers.

Coding and App Development Resources for Teachers - includes the App Design Journal for ages 10 and up, the App Design Workbook for ages 14 and up, the Inclusive App Design Activity and the Quick Start to Code - to name a few!

Swift Student Challenge - this is something I am REALLY keen to lead some of my students towards. I have met some past winners from our region and have loved hearing their stories and the impact the challenge has had on their lives.

Next steps for me.... I am going to take Steph's advice and challenge myself to keep practicing my new superpowers using the 100 days of Swift resources. Watch this space 😉