Apple Partners With Boys & Girls Clubs to Provide Tens of Thousands of Kids With Opportunity to Learn How to Code

[MacRumors]

In celebration of Computer Science Education Week, Apple today announced it has launched a new program that will allow tens of thousands of students at Boys & Girls Clubs in more than a dozen U.S. cities to learn how to code.

Using iPads donated by Apple, students at select Boys & Girls Clubs will be able to access Apple's free Everyone Can Code curriculum alongside educators, allowing them to learn the basics of app design and development with Apple's programming language Swift.

Apple said the program will initially launch at Boys & Girls Clubs in 10 regions, including Atlanta, Austin, the Washington D.C. metro area, Miami-Dade County, Wake County, the San Francisco Bay Area, and others. Programming is already available at clubs in Atlantic City, Chicago, Detroit, Nashville, and Newark, New Jersey.

"At Apple, we believe education is a force for equity, and that all learners should have the opportunity to explore and develop coding skills for their future," said Lisa Jackson, Apple's vice president of Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives.

Article Link: Apple Partners With Boys & Girls Clubs to Provide Tens of Thousands of Kids With Opportunity to Learn How to Code

 

[Villarrealadrian]

Great! I develop apps in swift and it's a great experience, I think swift playgrounds is a great place to start!

 

[now i see it]

App Store needs more apps

 

[Mr. Dee]

I am actually planning on downloading Swift Playgrounds in the near future and dabble a bit with it. Who knows, might be the start of something. Tried learning C++, but never went anywhere. Sometimes I think coding is black magic and I’ll just never get it. The big issue is how do you create something useful or what people really want in a world software that’s already saturated?

There is literally an app for anything you could want with multiple permutations. I look at even the work of someone like Steven Troughton Smith and the apps he’s created don’t seem to be of much use although he seems to get pity praises for it. But my sense is a lot of land grab is done and over. Unless you are creating something that can cure cancer or win the lottery, it’s pretty much gaining the skills to work got a big established developer.

 

[cyberslammer]

Will they provide this for fired journalists too?

 

[ghanwani]

Coding as a skill is useful, coding as a career is meh.

 

[4jasontv]

I am actually planning on downloading Swift Playgrounds in the near future and dabble a bit with it. Who knows, might be the start of something. Tried learning C++, but never went anywhere. Sometimes I think coding is black magic and I’ll just never get it. The big issue is how do you create something useful or what people really want in a world software that’s already saturated?

There is literally an app for anything you could want with multiple permutations. I look at even the work of someone like Steven Troughton Smith and the apps he’s created don’t seem to be of much use although he seems to get pity praises for it. But my sense is a lot of land grab is done and over. Unless you are creating something that can cure cancer or win the lottery, it’s pretty much gaining the skills to work got a big established developer.

Don’t make software for us. Make something you want.

 

[mdnz]

I am actually planning on downloading Swift Playgrounds in the near future and dabble a bit with it. Who knows, might be the start of something. Tried learning C++, but never went anywhere. Sometimes I think coding is black magic and I’ll just never get it. The big issue is how do you create something useful or what people really want in a world software that’s already saturated?

There is literally an app for anything you could want with multiple permutations. I look at even the work of someone like Steven Troughton Smith and the apps he’s created don’t seem to be of much use although he seems to get pity praises for it. But my sense is a lot of land grab is done and over. Unless you are creating something that can cure cancer or win the lottery, it’s pretty much gaining the skills to work got a big established developer.

Spot on, you work for a company that pays you a wage. Developing an app by yourself and expecting to make a living out of it, well that dream is long gone. Also people need to realize that as a developer, you only "code" like 50% of the time, there's a lot of overhead.

 

[JosephAW]

In 10 years the computers will code themselves and all these skills will be useless like when we used to know how to configure MS-DOS autoexec.bat and config.sys files.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Great! I develop apps in swift and it's a great experience, I think swift playgrounds is a great place to start!

Agreed.

This is a great move by Apple, kinda wondered how I nor Apple thought of this earlier. The synergy of showing kids technology they can use hands on and the immediate and healthy gratification and challenge of it working in near real-time will instill a great profession or foundation for kids into technology and they'll aspire more to be smarter, better and eventually help others.

 

[Runequester]

Great move. People get obsessed that the only use for this is becoming a professional programmer, but theres a ton of computer literacy and confidence this can build.

 

[ChromeAce]

I thought this was considered a racist phrase.

 

[ghostface147]

I need to learn how to code. Not to make a massive living, but to supplement. Not sure what I’d make though.

 

[macfacts]

A scheme to lock them into the apple ecosystem.

 

[Enlightened Doggo]

It's nice to see tech companies opening up these initiatives for kids in general, instead of turning children away based on what's between their legs or the shade of their skin–as they have in the recent past.

 

[temende]

I feel kinda bad that all these kids are just learning Swift which is only useful for building on the App Store where it's hard to make money. IMO learning web programming is much more lucrative.

 

[icwhatudidthere]

I feel kinda bad that all these kids are just learning Swift which is only useful for building on the App Store where it's hard to make money. IMO learning web programming is much more lucrative.

Learning any language is good since the general concepts are still applicable. For example, you still deal with the same logic regardless of what specific implementation you ultimately choose.

 

[Baretta]

Get some to debug the iWork codebase

 

[DeepIn2U]

App Store needs more apps

lol, we need more quality apps, either for purchase at reasonable amounts or by full year license. Subscriptions I loathe.

In 10 years the computers will code themselves and all these skills will be useless like when we used to know how to configure MS-DOS autoexec.bat and config.sys files.

LMAO ... same has been said in the early 80's then the 90's and the early 2000's ... coding themselves ... not even close yet.

Sorry but the Foundation still hasn't yet formed.

 

[44267547]

Coding as a skill is useful, coding as a career is meh.

I guess my question would be, can coding create a successful career where you’re financially lucrative? And just from the few people that I know that are into coding, they don’t make much money. So maybe depends on the employer, platform or what type of code.

However, related to the article, at least you have the opportunity for children to have an understanding of what code is from a introductory standpoint, it might lead to greater spectrums of where their strengths are for future learning workshops.

 

[Enlightened Doggo]

I guess my question would be, can coding create a successful career where you’re financially lucrative? And just from the few people that I know that are into coding, they don’t make much money. So maybe depends on the employer, platform or what type of code.

However, related to the article, at least you have the opportunity for children to have an understanding of what code is from a introductory standpoint, it might lead to greater spectrums of where their strengths are for future learning workshops.

Software developers are the most in demand workers in the US currently. Six figure salaries for experienced developers has been the norm for quite a while now due to a perpetual shortage. I work independently at $125/hour, which is low compared to what agencies charge their clients. The agency I used to work at charged between $175-225/hour for my labor. My understanding is that salaries are significantly lower outside of the US though.

 

[44267547]

Software developers are the most in demand workers in the US currently. Six figure salaries for experienced developers has been the norm for quite a while now due to a perpetual shortage. I work independently at $125/hour, which is low compared to what agencies charge their clients. The agency I used to work at charged between $175-225/hour for my labor. My understanding is that salaries are significantly lower outside of the US though.

Interesting that it’s an hourly rate job, and not salary based, especially at a three figures hourly. I assume that’s probably because you have different projects through different companies, and you kind of have to charge them an hourly rate versus salary, because you’re not working just for one company/client?

My other question to you would be, why is there such a demand now versus pre-pandemic? Are we seeing more people leave this industry because of what reasons?

 

[icwhatudidthere]

Interesting that it’s an hourly rate job, and not salary based, especially at a three figures hourly. I assume that’s probably because you have different projects through different companies, and you kind of have to charge them an hourly rate versus salary, because you’re not working just for one company/client?

My other question to you would be, why is there such a demand now versus pre-pandemic? Are we seeing more people leave this industry because of what reasons?

I'm not the OP but demand is not significantly different now vs pre-pandemic. IOW, it's always been high. It's greater in general but software developers (in the US) have always made bank. Both salary and contract rates have been very good, at least going back to when I started working in the 90s. Nowadays, it's not uncommon for top CS grads to hit 6 figures starting salary.

 

[Enlightened Doggo]

Interesting that it’s an hourly rate job, and not salary based, especially at a three figures hourly. I assume that’s probably because you have different projects through different companies, and you kind of have to charge them an hourly rate versus salary, because you’re not working just for one company/client?

Correct. I have my own company and contract with many clients. It is not normal to be paid hourly as a full-time software development employee in the US.

My other question to you would be, why is there such a demand now versus pre-pandemic? Are we seeing more people leave this industry because of what reasons?

The demand existed before the pandemic. Software development has been a safe career choice in the US for at least thirty years at this point.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Great move by Apple.