Professional Learning

Apple Rolls Out iPad Learning App Updates, More Resources for Educators

Learning Coach Program Now Accepting Applications for Next Cohort

• By Kristal Kuykendall
• 11/03/22

Apple recently announced a number of updates and new resources for K–12 educators, including new instructional resources emphasizing project-based learning, creativity, and collaboration, as well as professional learning opportunities.

Now through Nov. 16, 2022, Apple is accepting applications for the second nationwide cohort of its Apple Learning Coach program, which trains instructional technologists, digital learning specialists, and other educators in coaching roles to help teachers maximize Apple technology, in part by focusing on classroom creation instead of just consumption.

Apple Learning Coach includes self-paced lessons and two days of virtual workshops with Apple Professional Learning Specialists. The free program is open to employees of K–12 schools and districts in the United States who have an iPad and have earned their Apple Teacher recognition, a course in the Apple Teacher Learning Center that teaches foundational skills with Apple technology.

Educators wishing to participate in Apple Learning Coach must submit an application and obtain written approval from their school or district administration, Apple said. Learn more about ALC and hear from educators who have completed the program on THE Journal Insider podcast October episode.

The ALC program overview details how participants learn how to coach teachers to creatively integrate technology into learning, using free apps and resources from Apple’s Everyone Can Create projects, each of which includes teacher guides for helping students illustrate their learning through creating, using native iPad video, drawing, music, and photography apps.

The first public cohort of ALC was certified in July, following two pilot programs last year; over 1,600 K–12 educators across 49 states and the District of Columbia have earned their Apple Learning Coach certification, Apple said.

New Teacher Resources

Within the Apple Education Community — a hub for educators using Apple devices that launched lasst month — are new Everyone Can Create projects, designed to “empower educators to build their creative teaching skills and deliver engaging learning experiences on iPad,” Apple said.

New Everyone Can Create content includes:

• Design with Shapes in Keynote to help students visualize anything they can imagine, from math concepts to works of art
• Animate with Stop Motion using Photos and Keynote to tell compelling stories with everyday objects
• Create Editing Effects with iMovie
• Write Your First Song using GarageBand

Updates to Native & Free iPad Learning Apps

Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, iOS-native apps widely used in Apple-device classrooms, rolled out several updates, including giving users the ability to view recent activity in collaborative files and get notifications when people join, comment, and make edits.

Additionally, all three apps now enable users to automatically remove the background of images, and users can remove or replace the background of live video objects in Keynote.

Swift Playgrounds — available as a free download on the App Store and requiring iPadOS 16 or newer or macOS Ventura or newer — now helps users “learn the fundamentals of machine learning by training a model with a simple rock, paper, scissors game, demonstrating how computers make predictions from data,” Apple said in a news release.

Additional features show how to arrange app layouts by building a journal app. Swift Playgrounds requires no coding knowledge, making it a popular tool for classrooms just starting with coding. The app is based on widely used programming language Swift.

Updates across iWork and Swift Playgrounds support new desktop-class iPad features on iPadOS 16, including a customizable toolbar, new document menu, and support for Stage Manager, which aims to make multi-tasking on iPad easier.

Learn more at Apple.com/education.