Apple Launches Swift Playgrounds App to Teach Kids to Code

The app uses an interactive interface to helps kids explore Swift, Apple’s programming language.

Apple announced Swift Playgrounds, a new iPad app that teaches kids to code in Swift.

Navigating a colorful and graphic interface, students can write code to guide onscreen characters through an immersive, graphical world. They will be asked to solve puzzles and other challenges while learning core coding concepts. Lessons include issuing commands, creating functions, performing loops and using conditional code and variables. Apple plans to release standalone challenges to help students further develop their skills. Others can also use Xcode, a developer environment, to create challenges for the app.

Additionally, the app features built-in templates that can be shared with friends via e-mail or through social media. Projects can even be exported to Xcode to create programs for iOS and macOS that can become full-fledged apps.  

"I wish Swift Playgrounds was around when I was first learning to code,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, in a prepared statement. "Swift Playgrounds is the only app of its kind that is both easy enough for students and beginners, yet powerful enough to write real code. It’s an innovative way to bring real coding concepts to life and empower the next generation with the skills they need to express their creativity.”

The developer preview of Swift Playgrounds is now available. A beta version will be released in June and a final version of Swift Playgrounds will be available in the App Store for free this fall. Further information, including videos and demos, are available on the Swift Playgrounds site.

About the Author

Sri Ravipati is Web producer for THE Journal and Campus Technology. She can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • The First Steps of Establishing Your Cloud Security Strategy

    In this guide, we'll identify some first steps you can take to establish your cloud security strategy. We'll do so by discussing the cloud security impact of individual, concrete actions featured within the CIS Critical Security Controls® (CIS Controls®) and the CIS Benchmarks™.

  • Human Error Remains the Leading Cause of Cloud Data Breaches

    Human error is still one of the biggest threats to cloud security, despite all the technology bells and whistles and alerts and services out there, from multi-factor authentication, to social engineering training, to enterprise-wide integrated cybersecurity platforms, and more.

  • Abstract illustration of a human news reporter interviewing an AI with a microphone

    AI on AI in Education: A Dialogue

    Scholars are doing lots of asking and predicting about the risks and rewards of generative artificial intelligence in school, but has anyone asked the all-knowing chatbots?

  • Pattern of desks with interconnected circles, triangles, and lines

    Classroom Furniture Giveaway Seeks Dream Learning Space Design

    Educators have a chance to design their ideal K-12 learning space in a contest recently announced by classroom furniture manufacturer KI.