Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Apple Trains Chicago Teachers To Put Coding In More Classrooms (engadget.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the new-programs dept.

Apple has unveiled a partnership with Northwestern University and public schools to help teachers bring programming and other forms of computer science into Chicago-area classrooms. "The trio will set up a learning hub at Lane Tech College Prep High School that will introduce high school teachers to Apple's Everyone Can Code curriculum," reports Engadget. "They'll also have the option to train in an App Development with Swift course to boost the number of high school-oriented computer science teachers. Teachers will also have options for in-school coaching and mentorship to make sure they're comfortable with the curriculum when they're in front of actual students."

8 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. Next: "Everybody can do brain surgery!" by gweihir · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Which is actually true as long as a good outcome is not required. The results will be about as bad as with the coding though.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    1. Re:Next: "Everybody can do brain surgery!" by datavirtue · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'm all for this in the hopes that it will help those few who will go on to be programmers and would have anyway. I don't expect initiatives like this to create more coders. It could possibly result less coders; in fending off those who would later pursue programming and get locked into the industry before figuring out that they don't really like it.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    2. Re:Next: "Everybody can do brain surgery!" by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      Almost everyone can learn to read and write to a decent level. Almost everyone can master basic maths. Nearly every kid can learn to assemble Lego.

      It doesn't seem like school level coding should be any different. It's not brain surgery.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    3. Re:Next: "Everybody can do brain surgery!" by tehcyder · · Score: 2

      I look at it as writing. Almost everyone learns to write, almost none of them will ever write for a living though. Writing at a basic level isn't too hard, writing a novel is quite hard. Basic programming isn't hard, programming at a professional level can get to be quite difficult.

      My issue comes in when you get these asshats talking about how "programming is so easy anyone can do it". No, it's extremely difficult to do at a professional level. We're not paid what we are because we do something easy.

      Yes, but in essence everyone is just saying "let's get children able to read and write at a basic level not "let's turn every child into Shakespeare or Tolstoy".

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  2. Its not the teachers by AHuxley · · Score: 4, Insightful

    More teachers don't help with test scores.
    More cash did not help bring parts of the USA to some new educational level.
    Code and new computer devices don't improve grades every generation.

    All this support of computers got attempted over decades. The low test results stay the same.
    Teach the in poor areas students math and science. English.
    Use tests and exams to sort who should get a full scholarship to one of the very best colleges in the USA.
    On merit so only the very best students who can study get a full scholarship.

    Arts, biology, medicine, law. Work out what the community wants to see their best students learn.
    Computer "work" may not resonate with some communities in the USA with students who want and can learn.
    Medicine and law can be seen as the real pathway to a good wage.
    To some communities "computer" work is a computer shop selling computers. It has no value in the community as a worthwhile job for the best students.
    Stop making all students do something their community sees as a pathway to a below average job.
    Stop spending more on "computers" and see if the community wants more support for getting students into law and medicine for their very best students.
    For the rest offer support to get into a great number of vocational schools.
    Sport, art, music, languages, math, science. Stop expecting "computers" to magically fix every "gap" in education every decade.

    The only winners with "computers" is the brand that sells the computer and the sale of support coursework, robot kits.
    Try talking with the local community, see what they want for their best students who can learn.
    Support the rest of the students with coursework that actually interest them.
    Big brand computers for decades did not make poor areas any better educated.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  3. Re:Wrong title by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's about teaching how to use Swift . . . a "programming" language that is a proprietary technology that belongs to Apple.

    Uh...No.

  4. Re:Wrong title by jcr · · Score: 4, Informative

    The web pages, not the language. Swift is an open-source project. You can check it out of the repository, build it yourself, modify it, etc, etc.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  5. Apache License != proprietary by tepples · · Score: 2

    I thought all the articles making the "tailor Swift" pun mentioned that Apple distributes the reference implementation of Swift under the Apache License 2.0. If a work is distributed as free software under that license, it isn't "proprietary software" by the FSF's definition. What definition of "proprietary" are you using?