Apple unveiling new resources for elementary school students, teachers

Apple has announced that it’s unveiling new resources for elementary school students and educators, including a new activity guide, Everyone Can Code Early Learners, that extends its coding curriculum resources from kindergarten to college. 

Educators can also try Apple’s new one-hour Inclusive App Design activity to introduce students to the world of coding and app development. In addition, updates to the Schoolwork app include support for exit tickets and enable educators to use the app on their personal devices.

During Europe Code Week, October 9-24, and through Computer Science Education Week, December 6-12, Apple is encouraging educators and their students to participate in an introductory Inclusive App Design activity. This new lesson from Apple helps educators guide students through a one-hour session to turn their ideas into apps with inclusion and accessibility in mind. 

The app design process helps students identify problems they care about, and then plan, prototype, and code creative solutions. Apple says it helps students think critically about how to build apps that are inclusive for all and prepares them to be the innovators of tomorrow.

In addition, new updates coming to the Schoolwork app add support for a popular educator survey tool called exit tickets. Exit tickets are a quick way for teachers to check in with students during or after class, using easy-to-create questions to gauge student comprehension, reactions, or engagement. Apple says that new enhancements to the Schoolwork setup experience give teachers the ability to create Schoolwork accounts for students with little to no IT involvement.

Everyone Can Code Early Learners is available today as a free download for families and educators on apple.co/code-early. In celebration of Europe Code Week, the guide is launching in English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish, with additional languages to follow. The Inclusive App Design activity is available now in the Apple Teacher Learning Center. The Schoolwork app is available in beta through AppleSeed for IT.