Apple celebrates Hour of Code at its retail stores

Apple has opened registration for thousands of free Hour of Code sessions available at all Apple Stores Dec. 4-10. The company also introduced a new educational challenge in Swift Playgrounds and added new teacher resources to the Everyone Can Code curriculum to help teach Swift, Apple’s programming language.

For the fifth year, Apple Stores will participate in Hour of Code with daily coding sessions in celebration of Computer Science Education Week. Young aspiring coders can learn coding basics during a Kids Hour session, while those age 12 and above can use Swift Playgrounds on iPad to learn coding concepts and even program robots. A new Teacher Tuesdays session helps educators learn how to teach code to students using new resources and discussion topics.

A new Hour of Code challenge in the Swift Playgrounds app invites students to build a digital robot and customize it with new parts including cyborg eyes and electric hula hoop arms. Swift Playgrounds is available as a free download in the App Store in 15 languages, including English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese and Japanese.

Apple’s new Everyone Can Code curriculum includes a free Hour of Code guide featuring the new Swift Playgrounds challenge to make it easy to get started teaching code in schools, community centers and after-school programs. Schools can easily host their own one-hour Hour of Code event anytime by downloading the Swift Playgrounds app and Hour of Code guide.

You can find and register for a coding session at a local Apple Store at apple.co/hourofcode.