Not everyone wants to be a developer, but what we do know is that problem solving and algorithmic thinking are important skills regardless of career path to be ready for the future of work. Learning to code helps to build these soft skills, and also the hard skills required for career paths in tech or software development.
The MobileMakersEdu Winter Contest encourages students to take on a growth mindset, and explore iOS Swift. This initiative also encourages students to explore tools and resources available to professional software developers, a skill that will support them no matter their post-high school plans.
MobileMakersEdu teachers - encourage your students to take on this challenge! To learn more, read on!
Contest Overview
Regardless of the industry or field of study, understanding how to record, post, and share a screencast is a critical skill for working professionals. Both entrepreneurs and software developers use screencasts and videos as a way to network virtually and demonstrate their knowledge with others.
This year’s MobileMakersEdu Winter contest is a challenge for MME students to create their own screencast tutorial that explains a feature using Xcode and Swift. Check out this sample Swift tutorial screencast here.
Rules
- Students enrolled in a MobileMakersEdu High School course during the 2022-23 school year are eligible to participate.
- Screencast submissions are due by January 20th, 2023 at 5:00 PM CST to the following form:
- All students are required to a link to a screencast video that is seven minutes or less, which covers the following information:
- Introduce the developer(s), the name of the school, and the name of the teacher
- State the name of the feature (e.g., UISegmentedControl)
- Explain or provide examples of why or when the feature is used in an app
- Live code! Walkthrough of how to code something in Swift
- Run the app in the simulator to show what you built
- Explain why someone else should use this screencast to build the feature on their own
- Bonus judging criteria for the most viewed screencast! Post the screencast on YouTube or Vimeo so that it can be viewed by other people learning how to build apps with Xcode and Swift. Share it with @mobilemakers on Twitter (plus tag @unchartedLRNG) and we’ll share so people know what you’ve created!
- Both students and teachers have the opportunity to win cool prizes!
Contest Highlights
WHAT:
A contest that encourages students to research and develop features not directly taught by their teacher to add to a new app, or an app already developed for the course.
WHY:
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- To help students push themselves to be resourceful and have the 'grit' to learn something new in Swift without the direct support of a teacher.
- To support students to take safe risks and share their knowledge with others.
- To provide winning students the opportunity to receive feedback from professional iOS developers working in the field.
WHEN:
Begins December 9th, 2022 (aka today!), Submit Your Screencast Here by 5:00 PM CST on January 20th, 2023.
HOW:
Students can work with up to one partner, who is also qualified to participate. Students must create a tutorial screencast where they demo to others how to use a feature that is not taught in the MobileMakersEdu course. Students must develop in the Swift programming language.
Prizes
3rd Place Team
- MobileMakersEdu T-shirt
- $15 Amazon Gift Card for each member
2nd Place Team
- MobileMakersEdu T-shirt
- $25 Amazon Gift Card for each team member
1st Place Team
- MobileMakersEdu T-shirt
- One hour of mentoring and consulting with a professional software developer for the team
- $50 Amazon Gift Card for each team member
- Teacher feature blog post
NEW!! Separate Category & Prize for SWIFTUI
- MobileMakersEdu T-shirt
- $25 Amazon Gift Card for each team member
About the Contest
We’re on a mission to help students build the confidence and skills they need to be entrepreneurs and grow as independent problem solvers. MobileMakersEdu Winter Screencast Contest deepens this kind of learning by encouraging students to go outside of their comfort zone and share what they have learned and built with the greater iOS developer community. Because students have to build their own screencast from concept to reality, they must expand upon the Swift they learned with their teacher by exploring resources available to professional software developers, a skill which will support them no matter their post-high school interests.
***By submitting the public link to a video for the contest, students and schools agree to allow MobileMakersEdu and Uncharted Learning, NFP, to share it with the world for education and marketing purposes.***
A Few Tips
- Judges are watching your screencast and choosing their favorites to decide our winners. It’s not just about the material but your presence and energy in the video that helps keep people watching to the end of your tutorial. Being energetic & excited to teach the world what you know greatly helps keep people’s attention. Think about what type of screencast you yourself would like to watch.
- Be specific on what you teach. There are a million exciting topics you could cover so being specific will help you stay on target in a limited video length (7 minutes or less).
- This is possible as a remote team. If you’re submitting as a team, you could record the raw video by recording a Zoom call and having a member share their code screen. Be energetic and then cut out the unnecessary parts in the edit and be sure to stay in time. 7 minutes or less is a requirement.
