Apple Brings Coding Classes to Deaf and Blind Students this Fall

Students with hearing and vision disabilities in several schools across the United States will soon attend coding classes through an initiative led by the iPhone-making company, Apple.

The company’s initiative, fittingly announced on May 17 celebrated as the Global Accessibility Awareness Day, will be carried out through Apple’s Everyone Can Code program.

In the company's official announcement, Apple CEO Tim Cook stated, “We created Everyone Can Code because we believe all students deserve an opportunity to learn the language of technology. We hope to bring Everyone Can Code to even more schools around the world serving students with disabilities.”

So far, Apple has listed eight initial participating schools including California School for the Blind and California School for the Deaf in Fremont, the New York City Department of Education’s District 75/Citywide Programs, Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind, Hadley Institute for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Illinois, Perkins School for the Blind in Massachusetts, Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and Texas School for the Deaf.

The said eight schools across the United States will start incorporating Apple’s Everyone Can Code curricula to their programs in fall.

The Cupertino-based tech giant said they have also been in touch “with engineers, educators, and programmers from various accessibility communities” to modify Everyone Can Code “as needed” while the schools will be crafting lessons to accommodate Apple’s coding curricula.

Apple will also make use of its Swift Playgrounds platform to bring the coding classes closer to young students with hearing and vision disabilities. Swift Playgrounds is an iPad application that delivers a more interactive approach in introducing coding to young people.

The company showed a preview of applying their own accessibility program called VoiceOver to Swift Playgrounds that will help students navigate the latter “without needing to see the screen.”

Meanwhile, to further celebrate the Global Accessibility Awareness Day, all Apple physical stores are conducting “accessibility-related events and sessions” for the whole month of May.