Colegio Atid: Recognized by Apple Alejandro Zavala, Atid Press & Publications
Atid School had a year filled with success in regards to joint projects with Apple. The latest one was the implementation of Swift Playgrounds, a new virtual application to teach young children the basic concepts of programming.
In September Apple broadcasted a live keynote back to present flagship products such as the iPhone 7 and Apple Watch Series 2. During the presentation, Tim Cook, Apple´s CEO, recognized just over 100 institutions around the world that are implementing Swift Playgrounds. Atid’s name was proudly displayed in that list. “We cannot wait to see what these children will do throughout the school year.” – Tim Cook
It is noteworthy to mention that a lot of the institutions in this exclusive list were world-renowned universities. Their common denominator is a technologically enhanced learning environment, which promotes coding abilities and, more importantly, students’ creativity. At Atid K to12 principals, Math teachers and EdTech coaches are using Apple for its Education iTunes University materials to collaborate, design and develop a school-wide plan to teach programming. Our goal is to give children the opportunity to think creatively, be critical about their findings, work collaboratively, design systematic reasoning, find efficient processes, and make their thinking visible by creating solution-based apps.
The school is no stranger to Apple’s coding tools. Swift is the default tool used to teach the development of apps. In fact, students as young as 14 years old, are already developing different apps, which are not only functional but are aimed to help their community. An example is DAM, an app created by Marcos Abadi from 8th grade, which enables a blood donor community. By introducing Swift Playgrounds to the younger classes, the school is making sure that every student grows with programming knowledge, which is becoming essential for today’s digital world.
By working through programming lessons at different grade levels, children in early grades are developing logical thinking and problem-solving skills through block-based coding and simple sequential algorithms. In higher elementary grades, students are being introduced to structures and concepts such as conditions, cycles, events and functions. They are using all of these concepts on their interdisciplinary projects. Students will be able to use what they learn in science and math and apply their algorithm-building skills to represent abstract concepts in a visual form.
“Being part of the Apple Distinguished Program, we have the responsibility to push our students towards developing their full potential to become the best they can be.” – Martha Sánchez, IT Director
Being recognized during a high profile, international, live broadcast reflects Atid’s ambitious educational aims. Our institution is proud to get worldwide recognition of its efforts and will continue to work towards a better future with global opportunities for its students.
More information and photos on our website https://www.atid.edu.mx/edtech/programmingproject