North Carolina 4-H Partners With Apple to Teach Technology

Kids spend a lot of time on digital devices. What if, instead of looking for entertainment, they actually created content themselves? What if they developed an app that benefited their community? What if their devices provided a way to engage with learning in new and fun ways?

A partnership between North Carolina 4-H and Apple aims to make those what ifs into reality.

Through its Community Education Initiative, Apple is providing hardware, financial support, scholarships, educator resources, and access to Apple experts. NC 4-H will use the assistance to help youth develop competence in coding. Each participant will be encouraged to apply the knowledge to their individual interest — art, sports, community involvement, etc.

“We are really appreciative of the support that Apple is providing to us and the ability to take this information to our young people,” said Autumn Cano-Guin, NC 4-H Quality Youth Program Specialist with NC State Extension. “In order to be successful in the future, our kids in North Carolina have got to have the ability to use technology. As a university, as NC State Extension, I’m excited for what this means for our state and how it really puts us at the cusp of where our kids need to be.”

North Carolina 4-H participants will learn how to create apps and content on iOS devices thanks to a new partnership with Apple.

NC 4-H is the youth development program of N.C. Cooperative Extension, a partnership involving NC State and N.C. A&T State universities. Extension experts with the schools deliver 4-H programming in all 100 counties across North Carolina and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. NC 4-H serves more than 200,000 young people between the ages of 5-19 with activities including community and project clubs, special interest programs, school enrichment programs, and afterschool programs.

Program participants will learn how to code on Apple devices including iPad and iPhone. They will be able to create anything from photography to movies to drawing to music. They will also learn coding for app development for iOS devices.

Apple inaugurated the Community Education Initiative to inspire the next generation of innovators and give kids opportunities to learn. It encourages community involvement through app development and opens up new career opportunities for youth — coder, designer, developer, project manager.

The company partnered with 4-H because of its ability to reach youth in every part of the state, including communities traditionally underrepresented in technology, and because of its robust STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) programs.

“4-H is and has been science since its inception,” Cano-Guin said. “A lot of folks associate us with agriculture, but we are also microbiology and technology and everything that you think of with STEM.”

Initially, the program will be taught in eight counties across North Carolina, blending rural, suburban and urban locations. Two NC State campus kits will be available statewide. The second phase will expand to 12 counties by the end of the year.

Ashley Brooks, 4-H agent in Craven County, learns how to create on an iPad. 4-H agents learned about coding and content creation from Apple experts so they can impart the knowledge to program participants.

NC 4-H educators will teach the program in four steps, labeled as “explore, learn, try, and apply and connect.” Participants will receive an introduction to coding, dive deeper and build confidence, demonstrate mastery, share their knowledge with others, and apply skills to real-world situations.

“Success will be getting kids interested in coding and technology, and seeing that it’s more than just scrolling on social media,” said Katy Haywood, 4-H program manager for the Apple initiative. “There’s so many different things that you can do with the technology that is built into so much of everyday life. We’ll be able to get the technology in the kids’ hands and show them how to use it and then let them be free to create and learn.”

NC 4-H agents involved in the first two phases of the program gathered in Raleigh in September to learn from Apple experts. They spent two days absorbing the coding information they will pass on to their youth while having fun applying it by creating themselves.

“We as educators have been busy just learning how to use the technology in different ways,” said Taylor Wright, 4-H agent in Randolph County. “The model of 4-H is to learn by doing. You learn by actually getting your hands on it and doing it. So it’s just really fun to learn this new 21st century way of learning by doing with technology.”

Ashley Brooks, 4-H agent in Craven County, is very enthusiastic about inaugurating the training with her youth.

“This is going to be life changing for our kids,” she said. “They’re already using their phones, but they’re using them for the basics. You know, watch a movie on YouTube. They can do so much more. It’s going to raise their creativity levels, their critical thinking levels, and give them those job skills that they’ll need in the future.”

Apple inaugurated its partnership with 4-H extensions through its work with Ohio State University in 2019. Mark Light was a 4-H program specialist in Ohio then, and one of the first to teach the program. He’s now the Extension 4-H STEM specialist at N.C. A&T.

“My motto in Ohio was always how do we move kids from being content consumers, staring at screens, to content creators with technology,” Light said. “They have a powerful tool. And if all they’re doing is scrolling and watching videos and not using it as a tool, then they’re really missing out. This is to help shift the generation to think you could be the creators. You could be the app designers, the game designers. We really want our 4-H members to have the opportunity to do great things with technology. And this gives us that opportunity by putting it in their hands.”