European Code Week turns ten. Launched in 2013 by the European Commission to promote coding and digital literacy for allboth in schools and outside, in an engaging way, this year takes place from 7 to 22 October. Learning to write code is just one of the skills, and perhaps the most “operational” among those that can be made available to young people who will enter the job market tomorrow or to people who are already active today and want horizontal or vertical retraining, that is, the ability to change jobs or acquire new skills within the activity they already carry out.
Why according to Tim Cook everyone should study a programming language by Bruno Ruffilli 04 October 2022
Why is it so important to learn the use of digital tools? The short answer, provided by researchers who deal with computer science and pedagogy, is that the so-called “computational thinking”, i.e. the ability to understand the algorithmic operating logics and using them for your projects or in life is the fundamental part of digital transformation. Whether it is an entrepreneur who understands how to use digital in his business or whether it is an employee who participates more productively in hybrid work groups for the realization of projects in which programmers are also involved, digital literacy is just the beginning: IT competence and culture are now unavoidable requirements. In all of this there is the fundamental role that coding and digital skills can have across the European continent.
The EU pushes private individuals and local administrations to make the best possible contributions to this overall effort. Among the companies there is Apple, the iPhone and Mac company, which actually has a history much more linked to the training and educational sector than one might think. In fact, the company has now gained more than 40 years of experience with teachers all over the world, including Italy, and has an intense training activity. Especially, since the 2000s Steve Jobs was at the helm of the company and pushed for a radical change in the role and function of those who produce technology, Apple tried to understand what it takes to engage and inspire students. Tim Cook, the current number one in Cupertino, has accelerated substantially on this path, citing several times the importance of training and access to the widest possible groups of people, regardless of initial abilities, income and social position.
For this reason, the company has been experimenting first-hand with the use of technology for some time to offer opportunities for the development of creativity and “problem solving” skills (at the basis of computational thinking), communication and collaboration skills, which are important in the world of work, but not only. Throughout the world, where there are Apple Stores, the company organizes free sessions in the Stores open to all (with reservation) called “Today at Apple“. There are 15 thousand meetings a week, with two activities in particular, “Write the code for your first app” e “Learn to code with Swift Playgrounds”, which are carried out with greater intensity during the Code Week editions. But this is the tip of the iceberg from both a technological and operational perspective.
Apple made a profound investment as it rebuilt the technologies behind its products to ensure that they were open, inclusive and available for training and teaching. From the open source programming language Swiftwhich can be used for teaching as well as for the creation of actual apps, the availability of tools to learn to program (with the Playgrounds app available for iPad and Mac) or with access to the free developer program via Xcode.
However, there is also another activity that is less known but perhaps more important, namely that of participation in training in schools. Apple indeed has been running an “education” program for years chiamato “Everyone can code” (“Programming is for everyone”), which, rather than simply providing tools to schools, offers certifications for teachers and teaching material. Apple’s goal is to create engaging learning experiences, and help teachers and administrations to exploit technology in the classroom and beyond. Apple products and resources in these contexts are designed to make learning personal, creative and inspiring.
“Apple’s coding curriculum has great merits,” says Giovanna Busconi, 40 years of teaching behind herfrom about twenty trainers and then Apple Distinguished Educator, i.e. certified for educational technology skills by the company. “The first advantage is that it starts from childhood and reaches adulthood and then and a complete curriculum; the second is that it is based on the real language, i.e. Swift; the third is that it is a curriculum studied and tested by teachers, so anyone who wants to follow it has it in some way shoulders covered, it is certain that someone else has tried it before, they can throw themselves into this adventure with greater peace of mind. Those who have more confidence can cut, integrate and recompose the curriculum and the path to better adapt it to their students”.
Apple designed these activities as an Education Community, a community of educators. Anyone can access all these materials simply by going to Apple’s Education platform, downloading the materials, interacting with all the other teachers who have signed up to this platform, with whom they can exchange ideas.
“The curriculum – says Busconi – starts from scratch; it can be taught starting from the basics of programming to then lead the boys and girls, with the appropriate timing, to also obtain a recognized certification on a professional level. If students already have initial skills, we can start from those to integrate, complete and go further. It is a versatile curriculum, it can be tackled and can accompany all students of any age level. The great thing is that it is aimed at everyone, even adults therefore even the teachers themselves can, if they have not previously acquired programming skills, use the same curriculum to acquire them. This aspect must be underlined because it is also important for the teachers themselves to know at least the basics of programming.”
The last theme is perhaps the crucial one. Because, in addition to the ability that the new generations have to learn what is characteristic for them of the environment that surrounds them, and therefore a digital culture in the strict sense, there is also the need to supply skills to those who already have their own training and never touched on certain topics. The goal of projects like Apple’s coding project goes beyond coding, that is, the activity of simply writing codeas the approach to is usually trivialized culture of digital transformation. “With this type of activity the result achieved is certainly to have made the kids passionate because IT can truly be a passion, to have taught them to work in groups and to collaborate, to share, to find useful resources (including information ) and certainly to create in them a strong capacity for problem solving, problem solving”, says Busconi.