Note: This feature was first published on 10 August 2022.
The Swift Explorers Singapore 2022 is a seven-month-long app development programme that was managed and organised by Crescent Girls' School. With training supported by Tinkeracademy - an Apple Professional Learning Provider - and resources from Apple, the initiative aims to instill a love for coding and to impart digital literacy skills to students.
Opened to more than 50 schools in Singapore, 20 of them sent their participating students to Crescent Girls' School to celebrate the completion of the first stage of their app development journey. They also get to showcase their app concepts during the ceremony - and boy, were we impressed.
Swift Explorers Singapore aims to empower students with critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills through basic coding on the iPad. What's really interesting though, is that they also learn business skills by pitching app ideas to an audience, which is also aimed at developing these youths' confidence.
Ashley (left) and Neha (right) from Cedar Girls' School stole the show for me. Their team's app concept, called Elderly Care, is aimed at helping caretakers manage their elderly's daily life as well as to serve as a journal of beautiful memories created together. It's really for those with love ones who are suffering from illnesses like dementia. What impressed me was the level of confidence and clarity that Neha spoke with, while describing the app to me, and when I asked her questions about the app.
At the higher level, I spoke with Pan Xilu and Zhou Haoqi of Victoria Junior College. Their app, Medit, helps remind people suffering from chronic illnesses to take their medicine regularly. Unlike similar apps that are already available in the App Store, Medit is unique as it allows users to search for a particular medicine and its functions based on the name or disease. It is also equipped with online purchasing and medicine delivery.
Swift Explorers didn't just get to speak or be interviewed by members of the press. They also have to share their apps or app concepts with fellow participants, and it is quite the eye-openers to hear 13-year-olds and 15-year-olds sharing concept ideas and their approach to their own apps' UI design with each other.
What were you doing when we were 13-years-old? Gosh.
While the older participants' concepts are, unsurprisingly, more polished, what surprises me (again) was that the critical-thinking and thought process of the younger students revealed a maturity beyond their age. I certainly wasn't thinking about "climate change" nor "elder care" when I was their age. But then again, today's real-world problems are different from, say, 20 or even 10 years ago. Easy access to technology such as Apple's iPad, Mac and the internet afford the youths of today a different type of learning experience.
Participants will present their app concepts using Swift Playground on the iPad first. The app is a powerful programming language that requires no coding knowledge, so it's perfect for students just starting out. They get to solve puzzles to master the basics, then step up to learn the building blocks of apps with interactive walkthroughs designed by Apple.
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