Introduction to iOS Dev
On Mondays through Fridays, I create learning materials for Udacity’s iOS Nanodegree, but I never actually found time to take the Nanodegree myself. On this 3-day weekend, I changed that. I am currently finishing the first course/project, and I am really enjoying learning from my fellow Udacians and peers. Here is my post for what I’ve learned so far in the Introduction to iOS App Development with Swift course.
TAKE TIME TO READ
Multiple times throughout the course, the teacher (Kunal) suggests that students go and read documentation, Stack Overflow posts, or other student’s comments to understand a problem. This has been enlightening for me as a student and a teacher, and I plan on trying to include more great reading resources in my future courses.
BREAK PROBLEMS DOWN
When you are teaching a foreign concept, especially one that is programming-related, it is great to give clearly defined steps to help scope and set expectations for students. I really love Kunal’s step-base approach to building the first app, Pitch Perfect, and how he introduces concepts just as you need them (a.k.a “just-in-time learning”).
YOU CAN ALWAYS LEARN SOMETHING NEW
I have gone through my fair share of “introductory iOS courses”, but I always gain a new understanding. This time, I learned the shortcut for fitting/scaling a UI component to fit its contents—specifically UILabels. I’m looking forward to using it soon!