Introduction of Swift Playground in the Classroom for Visually Impaired Students Jang Hee I

Table of contents Profile Terms History, benefits, and its limitations Curriculum Survey Results Conclusion

Profile Education Work Experience Master of Arts in Instructional Technology and Media, Teachers College, Columbia University Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science and Mathematics, U of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Work Experience CEO and Founder, Cobrix LLC Project Lead, 3D Printing Lab, Korea Institute of Science and Technology Principal Research Scientist, Korea IT Business Promotion Agency

TERMS Computer Science? Computational Thinking skills? Code? Everyone Can Code curriculum? Swift Playground?

Terms Computer Science As the foundation for all computing, computer science is defined as “the study of computers and algorithmic processes, including their principles, their hardware and software designs, their implementation, and their impact on society” (Tucker et. al, 2003)

Terms Computational Thinking Skills Computational thinking refers to the thought processes involved in expressing solutions as computational steps or algorithms that can be carried out by a computer. (Cuny, Snyder, & Wing, 2010; Aho, 2011; Lee, 2016). Code Code is the language of technology (in other words, computational steps or algorithms) that powers technology around us. Explain Computational Thinking Skills in 1~2 sentences.

Terms Everyone Can Code Apple created a comprehensive Everyone Can Code curriculum to help teachers teach coding to students from kindergarten to college. With teacher guides and lessons, students can learn the basics on iPad, then advance to building real apps on Mac. Apple created a comprehensive Everyone Can Code curriculum to help teachers teach coding to students from kindergarten to college. With teacher guides and lessons, students can learn the basics on iPad, then advance to building real apps on Mac.

Terms Curriculum Audience App Overview Learning materials Support resources Hours of lessons Get Started with Code 1 Kindergarten through grade 2 codeSpark Academy Tynker Begin to think like coders with hands-on explorations of coding concepts using visual-based apps. codeSpark Academy app lessons Tynker Space Cadet course Get Started with Code 1: Teacher Guide 30 hours, including Teacher Guide and app lessons Get Started with Code 2 Grades 3 through 5 Explore fundamental coding concepts and practice thinking like coders using visual-based apps. Tynker Dragon Spells course Get Started with Code 2: Teacher Guide 36 hours, including Teacher Guide and app lessons What is Everyone Can Code curriculum? It is Apple’s new program that includes a range of resources that take students all the way from no coding experience to building their first apps. It includes resources and tools for learning from kindergarten to high school and beyond.   You can see

Terms Curriculum Audience App Overview Learning materials Support resources Hours of lessons Learn to code 1 & 2 Middle school and up Swift Playground Learn fundamental coding concepts using real Swift code. Swift Playgrounds app Learn to Code 1 & 2 lessons iTunes U course Learn to Code 1 & 2: Teacher Guide Apple Teacher Learning Center Swift Playgrounds badges Up to 85 hours, including Teacher Guide and Learn to Code 1 & 2 lessons Learn to code 3 Middle School and up Expand coding skills and start thinking more like an app developer Learn to Code 3 lessons Learn to Code 3: Teacher Guide Up to 45 hours, including Teacher Guide and Learn to Code 3 lessons Swift Playground primarily serves

Terms Curriculum Audience App Overview Learning materials Support resources Hours of lessons Introduction to App development with Swift High school and college Xcode Get practical experience with the tools, techniques, and concepts needed to build a basic iOS app from scratch. Intro to App Development with Swift book and project files Intro to App Development with Swift: Teacher Guide MobileMakersEdu professional learning workshops 90 hours App development with Swift Build a foundation in Swift, UIKit and networking through hands-on labs and guided projects. Students can build an app of their own design by the end of the course. App Development with Swift book and project files App Development with Swift: Teacher Guide 180 hours There are resources for advanced students as well.

terms Swift Playground Better watch a video than hear another word, follow the link! Swift Playgrounds is a free iPad app from Apple that makes learning and experimenting with code interactive and fun.

History, benefits, and its limitations Recently, there has been a surge of interest in learning to code (Resnick, 2013). Rushkoff (2010) emphasized programming as tools to potentially help children not only to read digital media but also to write such media. In the process of learning to code, they learn coding to learn and practice thinking strategies fundamental to programming concepts such as mathematics, algorithm, and computational ideas (Brennan & Resnick 2012).

History, benefits, and its limitations Despite national attention on computer science, there is a significant lack of educational resources for blind and visually impaired population to learn programming. The transition of programming environment to virtual interface has had an unfavorable effect on students with disabilities to learn programming, thus end up limiting their participation (Siegfried, 2006).

Curriculum Learn to Code 1 Lesson 0 - Getting Started Lesson 1 - Think Like a Computer: Commands and Sequences Lesson 2 - Think Like a Detective: Debugging Lesson 3 - Think Efficiently: Functions and a Bit of Loops Lesson 4 - Think Logically: Conditional Code Lesson 5 - Think Again and Again: While Loops Lesson 6 - Think the Same Idea: Algorithms Let’s look at the topics that Learn to Code 1 & 2 covers. You can see…

Curriculum Learn to Code 2 Lesson 7 - Think Like a NewsBot: Variables Lesson 8 - Think Like an Architect: Types Lesson 9 - Think Specifically: Parameters Lesson 10 - Think Organized: Arrays Milestone Project App Design.

Curriculum Learn to Code 1 & 2 Teacher Guide Introduction Activity Practice Reflection Journal Learn to Code 1 & 2 Teacher Guide is made of

Curriculum Lesson 1: Think Like a Computer: Commands and Sequences Objectives Describe what commands and sequences are Demonstrate the use of commands and sequences in an everyday situation Code using commands and sequences Key Vocabulary Command, Sequence

Curriculum Introduction Explain Introduction, Your students get to tell you what to do! Some examples are to draw a smiley face on the board or to tie your shoe. For an example, Walk to the board. Pick p a marker with the tip facing downward. Take the cap off the marker. Draw a circle on the board… and so on. Start a discussion with your students, asking if their directions were successful and how they could improve them.

Curriculum Activity: Hide and Seek Students will create video directions for someone to find a hidden object. Direct students who are blind or have low vision to a specific starting point in the classroom. Students will use the iPad camera to record themselves giving directions for finding a hidden object in the room. Students should physically complete the steps for hiding the object while recording. Repeat the process with other object. Start a discussion with students. Ask them if they were successful. Did they leave out important directions?

Curriculum Practice Now, students will use Swift Playground and complete the puzzles. Students will develop coding skills by giving instructions using simple commands. By doing so, they’ll learn that commands are pieces of code that tell the program to perform a specific action executed in a specific order.

Curriculum To view practice in action, follow the link!

Curriculum Reflection How many moves did it take to solve the puzzle? If they added more moves, would they still solve the puzzle? How does thinking like a computer compare to thinking like a human? Journal What is a command and what is a sequence? What do they know about giving directions and thinking like a computer? Reflection How many moves did it take to solve the puzzle? If they added more moves, would they still solve the puzzle? How does thinking like a computer compare to thinking like a human? Journal What is a command and what is a sequence? What do they know about giving directions and thinking like a computer?

Curriculum Tactile Puzzle Worlds Along with instructional videos provided by Hadley Institute, there is a tactile resource for students and TVIs in the classroom.

curriculum Tactile Puzzle Worlds

Survey results Used vs. Not used, no significant difference but those who have used it expressed the slightly lower ratings than those who have not when it comes to student’s interaction with Swift Playground, the app. Let’s talk about survey results.

Survey results

Survey results

Survey results Suggestions Hands on learning tools (for an example, robots) to work with Swift Playground Tangible methods to understand the problem There were some good suggestions as well.

Conclusion Unlike coding tools not appropriate for blind and visually impaired learners, Swift Playground is a tool that could maintain thinking practices shared with CT for solving problems, designing projects, and communicating ideas and that are accessible to blind learners. Yet, TVIs can make the best of it when…

Conclusion Not enough TVIs have explored Everyone Can Code curriculum yet! Also, there is a weak consensus what resources TVIs need to further develop Everyone Can Code curriculum. Build an online community and a support system among TVIs to share guidance and support each other with instructional practices to teach computer science to blind and visually impaired students (for an example, ask Apple to provide additional resources as a group of TVIs).

Conclusion Support resources are lengthy and sometimes hard to understand, especially you are not tech-savvy TVI. Can an unexperienced TVI teach beyond the basic concepts of computational thinking? Learn, Discuss, Share! It echoes the past suggestion; it is going to take a while to understand how Swift Playground and its curriculum works if you are novice TVI to Swift Playground, so keep a habit of learning and reviewing the materials by yourself and with your colleagues.

Conclusion Would Swift Playground and its support materials be enough to keep students interested in and engaged in the lessons? Be more tactile and use hands-on classroom activities rather than solely hold onto Swift Playground throughout the class (Swift Playground is an app that helps to teach computational thinking skills; however, there are other proven ways to teach computational thinking skills effectively, for an example, CS unplugged).

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