From Classroom to App Store - Teaching your kids to code their own app for school

Ever since I began building apps for education in 2010, I have been inundated by teachers asking me how to do it. Not because they want to make their fortune with the next Angry Bird, but because they want to teach the children in their classes how to do it.

I first introduced coding iPhone apps in a club I ran for Year 6 children about four years ago. They loved it but as my commitments at school grew, I no longer had the time to continue with the club. And no other teachers knew how to do it themselves, let alone teach it.

I always meant to write a guide for teachers but it was one of those things I just never got round to. Until now.

'From Classroom to App Store' is my first book and it's out in September. We've deliberately delayed its release until after Apple release iOS 10 so the book will be the most up-to-date guide to coding an iOS app on the market and the only one aimed at educators with NO prior technical knowledge.

You see, I remember teaching myself to code. It was really hard. There's an awful lot of jargon out there and very active (and judgemental) professional developers who have a tendency to look down at Newbies like myself. What I wish existed back then was a book that explained everything as though I'd never really used anything more than Microsoft Word.

And that's what my book does. I've written it so you can easily follow the steps and explain them confidently to your children. Wherever there is something technical, I explain it so my own daughter (just finished Year 6) would understand... 

The book will take you on a journey from writing your very first app, to planning an app for your school, to building the artwork, to thinking about user experience to the App Store.

And that fundamentally is what I'm hoping to achieve. I want schools to be able to code their own app using code written by the children. 

Whilst the new(ish) curriculum places greater emphasis on coding than ever before, most of the coding going on in schools (at least in primary schools), involves moving a cat up and down and creating a maze game. 

Very few schools really delve into actual coding using an IDE (it's in the book!) and even fewer schools code for a real-life purpose.

I'm hoping that this book will change everything. 

Any school in the country could use this book, follow all the steps and submit their own app to the Apple Store.

That's no small claim. And I've put my email address and contact details in the book so I'm available if anyone gets stuck! 

So what do you need? I've been asked this a few times on Twitter. So let me clear it up now so you don't buy a book you can't use.

To complete the exercises in the book and build a genuine, native iPhone app, you will need:

• One Apple Mac computer - any kind will do as long as it can run the most recent version of Mac OS (I started on Mac Mini);
• PC or iPads to produce the artwork required - you can do this on the Mac too but if your school only has one Apple, the children can complete most of the exercises on a PC and then send their code to the one Mac to go into the app;
• One iPhone to test the app on - but you don't have to! It's just good practice!

If you actually want to submit your app to the App Store, you'll need an Apple Developer account which is currently £79 per year.

Oh yes, and you'll need a copy of "From Classroom to App Store" by Doug Stitcher! 

Pre-order your copy now and save £4 from http://www.thecepress.com/product/from-classroom-to-app-store/ 

I don't know who's looking forward to seeing your school app in the App Store most... you or me!