EXCITING NEW SESSIONS
Alongside an all-new Everyone Can Code
initiative, Apple has announced plans to
increase the number of Today at Apple
coding sessions from December 1 through
15, 2019 in order to celebrate Computer
Science Education Week. These free sessions
provide opportunities for participants at a
variety of skill levels to get started with coding.
Aspiring coders will be able to learn using
block-based coding with robots, and those
with prior coding knowledge can use Swift
Playgrounds to learn coding concepts or code
augmented reality apps.
What’s more, select stores will also offer
special sessions for coders of all ages. For
pre-schoolers, Apple will be offering coding
activities in its new Coding Lab under its
new Helpsters branding, a new live-action
preschool series, available now on Apple TV+
from the makers of Sesame Street. Apple
decided to include an element of code in its
new series to “foster collaboration [and] critical
thinking skills” amongst its preschool viewers,
introducing coding via the ‘Cody’ Helpster.
Cody is a friendly-sounding name and it’s easy
to remember, so when preschoolers think of
Cody, they will think of Helpsters which will
then resonate with Sesame Street which will
then resonate with Apple. It’s a clever move
for one of the world’s biggest technology
companies and will no doubt inspire the
next generation of coders around the world -
though it’ll be a few years before their creations
end up on the App Store, as users must be
eighteen or over to submit apps!