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Apple partners with Tynker to create game-based Swift coding lessons for kids

Apple has partnered with Tynker, a San Francisco-based STEM education platform, to release two new game-based programming lessons aimed to help kids learn how to code. The new Space Cadet and Dragon Spells courses are available for free.

The partnership includes free guides for teachers available through iBooks, and two free courses through the Everyone Can Code program for K-5 kids.

These free courses, available through the Tynker iPad app, allow students to solve coding puzzles and create do-it-yourself projects using Tynker’s visual code blocks and the Swift programming language. Tynker’s Space Cadet and Dragon Spells courses are incorporated into the Get Started with Code 1 and Get Started with Code 2 teacher guides, available for free on iBooks.

The new courses are designed to help K-5 kids become familiar with Swift syntax at an early age before transitioning to Apple’s Swift Playgrounds app in sixth grade and up.

Space Cadet and Dragon Spells are introductory courses that teach programming fundamentals in a fun, engaging, and intuitive way, through 115 levels of coding puzzles and do-it-yourself projects. In Space Cadet, students in kindergarten through second grade solve puzzles and complete programming challenges set in space. In Dragon Spells, third through fifth grade students learn programming fundamentals as they train their dragon and collect treasures. In both courses, students learn through creative play as they solve puzzles, build projects, and animate characters.

Tynker for iPad is available for free on the App Store.

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