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Apple’s New Accessible Coding Resources for Swift Playgrounds
Everything YOU need to teach Swift coding language to students with visual impairments or blindness!
Apple’s Press Release January 24, 2019:
Today, we are excited to announce new accessible coding resources. You may recall we’d announced last May we were bringing Everyone Can Code to schools serving deaf and blind students. Now we are bringing new, innovative resources to all students and teachers who can benefit from Apple’s built-in accessibility features and learn to code. Check these exciting new resources here including:
- Accessible Learn to Code 1 & 2 Teacher Guide optimized for VoiceOver and includes new activities and videos with closed captions and audio descriptions http://apple.co/accessible-teacherguide
- Swift Playgrounds Tactile Puzzle Worlds provides Unified English Braille and embossed graphics to help students who are blind or low vision navigate the puzzles in Learn to Code 1. These were designed in collaboration with San Francisco’s Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired (see their blog post) and are downloadable for free from the teaching code web page on Apple’s education site. People who have access to embossers can print them, or you can order print copies from Lighthouse SF or RNIB (Royal National Institute for the Blind) in the UK.
- Videos from Hadley School for the Blind help anyone get started using VoiceOver and Swift Playgrounds. https://hadley.edu/SwiftVideos.asp
- Coding Concepts Videos in American Sign Language: Deaf developers Will and Tim from Lyft explain coding concepts in ASL and give advice on app development from a Deaf perspective. These were developed in collaboration with the Deaf community and directed by Storm Smith, who used sign language from behind the camera, and edited and captioned them using Final Cut Pro and MacBook Pro. The results are accessible videos, in sign language with closed captions and text transcripts, that anyone can easily understand and enjoy. https://developer.apple.com/asl-videos/
Explore all these great new accessible coding resources here: https://www.apple.com/education/teaching-code/#accessibility
By Diane Brauner
