TYNKER TIKES: Is it ever too early to get kids into coding? Apple doesn’t seem to think so. This week it announced a partnership with Tynker, an online platform which teaches elementary students to code, to release two new programming games geared at K-5 students. The games are designed to support Apple’s Everyone Can Code initiative, which teaches kids the fundamentals of coding through Apple’s homegrown programming language: Swift.
While Apple has its own educational programming platform, Swift Playground, to help first-time coders learn the basics, the program is targeted at upper elementary and middle school students. The new Tynker games—Space Cadet and Dragon Spells—were designed to help younger students. In Space Cadet, K-2 students solve puzzles and complete simple coding challenges set in space; in Dragon Spells, students in grades 3-5 learn the fundamentals of Swift as they train their dragon and collect treasures.
In a prepared statement, Krishna Vedati, co-founder and CEO of Tynker, explains the games were “purpose-built to enable kids unfamiliar with coding to learn using visual code blocks and then ‘toggle’ to the Swift programming language as they progress in their development.” She hopes these new courses “inspire an even greater number of students and teachers to embrace coding as a way to enhance early learning and future careers.”
