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Apple offers free Swift, Xcode coding courses for teachers

Apple's new coding course helps teachers learn how to teach students to develop apps for iOS and macOS.
Written by Liam Tung, Contributing Writer

Apple has launched a free online course for teachers that gives them the knowledge to teach students how to develop apps with Swift, Apple's programming language for writing iOS and macOS apps.   

The free coding course aims to add to the tools available for teachers and parents to support students working in remote class environments due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, according to Apple.  

The offer to educators includes enhanced Develop in Swift and Everyone Can Code curricula, and a new professional learning course for Develop in Swift, which is available to educators for free.

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"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," said Susan Prescott, Apple's vice president of Markets, Apps, and Services. 

"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."

The Develop in Swift course also teaches educators and students how to use Xcode on a Mac, Apple's integrated development environment for building Swift projects. 

Apple has also freshened up its Everyone Can Code coding course, which is aimed at students in US grades 4 through 8 and uses puzzles and games to teach Swift via the Swift Playgrounds app. 

The Develop in Swift curriculum comprises four free books available in the Apple Books app. These include "Develop in Swift Explorations", "Develop in Swift AP CS Principles", and "Develop in Swift Fundamentals". A new "Develop in Swift Data Collections" book will be available this autumn. 

SEE: Apple: Programming language Swift 5.2 is out – Xcode 11.4 and faster code completion

The Everyone Can Code curriculum offers the new "Everyone Can Code Adventures" book aimed at students who have completed "Everyone Can Code Puzzles". It too is available for free in Apple Books. 

Catering to parents with kids learning how to code, Apple has also released new remote-learning resources, including "A Quick Start to Code" aimed at students ages 10 and up. There's also Apple's Learning from Home website, which gives teachers and parents on-demand videos and virtual conferences about remote learning and connects them to coaching sessions hosted by trainers at Apple. 

Over 9,000 K-12 and higher education institutions worldwide are using the Everyone Can Code and Develop in Swift, according to Apple.  

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