Apple Coding for high school home schooler

My daughter needs 1 semester computer course and she’s really interested in coding/app development. Has anyone used any of the resources Apple offers for school curriculum? If not is there something you’d recommend?

Thanks!

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Apple has Xcode as a programming language. You can write apps for macOS, iOS, tvOS and so forth. As far as something with a curriculum, I couldn’t tell you. Unless they will take a project, planning, coding and debugging an application as a project, it would be a great learning experience.

Swift or a talk about programming would make a good subject for an episode of MPU.

How was that for a subtle little hint, @MacSparky and @ismh? Sometime after episode 500.

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For a high school student wanting to learn their first programming language, I would recommend Python as a language. It is preinstalled on macOS. A quick Google search for Python for Kids will turn up many links like this one, Python for Kids.

For a more Apple focused experience I would recommend Swift Playgrounds. Here are two good links to get you started Macworld - How to use Swift Playgrounds and Get Your kids coding with Swift Playgrounds.

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Xcode is an integrated development environment. It supports source code for numerous programming languages, but I wouldn’t characterize it as a “language” per se.

Try to stick to Python 3.x+. Python 2.7 and below will be deprecated in macOS Catalina.

Katie

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Apple has a an entire series designed for use in schools. https://books.apple.com/us/book/ap-computer-science-principles-with-swift/id1456795905

There’s also Learn to Code 1 & 2, Intro to App Development in Swift, and App Development in Swift. The link above was just published a couple days ago and to my understanding is compatible with the requirements for the AP Computer Science curriculum in the US.

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