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Swift Playgrounds

One of the last, and most significant announcements made at Apple’s 2016 WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference), was Swift Playgrounds. Swift Playgrounds is an iOS app and is designed to introduce children to the world of programming and forms the core of Apple’s “Everyone Can Code” initiative.

 

The national curriculum for computing aims to ensure that all pupils:

  • can understand and apply the fundamental principles and concepts of computer science, including abstraction, logic, algorithms and data representation
  • can analyse problems in computational terms, and have repeated practical experience of writing computer programs in order to solve such problems
  • can evaluate and apply information technology, including new or unfamiliar technologies, analytically to solve problems
  • are responsible, competent, confident and creative users of information and communication technology

Swift Playgrounds provides a free resource to enable schools to address Computer Science which is often a daunting (for teachers) area of the curriculum.

 

Starting off with KS1 children, the curriculum states children need to understand what algorithms are, and to understand that these are fundamentally lists of instructions to follow to achieve a goal. This can be covered with an introduction to using Swift Playgrounds then creating and debugging simple programs.

 

Moving to older children at KS2, the emphasis is on more complicated programs with specific targets and goals. Children can potentially take their first steps by controlling devices such as robots and drones via programs created in Swift Playgrounds.

 

Swift is not limited to Primary education and can move happily into Secondary. Having progressed through the lower levels on the iPad up through controlling external devices (Drones, Lego, Sphero etc) we could move on to a Mac and begin to write our own Apps.

Swift is a “Real World” code that is used to create Apple Apps so it is platform for everyone to learn on without limitations.

The Sphero SPRK+ (highlighted in the video clips below) is designed for quick progression and beginners can easily give the robot code that has been written in Swift. For more experienced users, Sphero can be programmed with more advanced logic code blocks and older pro-users can use text programming and write their own Javascript, so there is something for all age groups and all abilities.

As the Sphero has a range of sensors, such as for motion and direction, and has the ability to react to them, students can be creative with their code. Activities such as maze navigation, painting and even swimming (Sphero is waterproof) are all exciting, fun and achievable.

Students can work with the Sphero in small groups to help with collaboration, and there are hundreds of ways to inspire you on how to get started in the classroom and to make coding approachable. Whether you create student competitions or complete engineering challenges, the Sphero provides many opportunities to engage in many different educational hot-topics.

To complement and assist teaching staff, Apple have produced a series of iBooks called “Learn to Code” which offer all you need to learn the basics of Swift. In addition, there is now support within version 1.5 of the application (released June 5th 2017)  for controlling robots and drones, and students can see their programming efforts take place in the real world rather than working in an on-screen, virtual environment.

KRCS have created our own 'Everyone Can Code' guide and you can download our iBook which contains links to Apple resources.

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