Honoring UN World Youth Skills Day: Student Coder Excels Past Visual Impairment

BARRINGTON, Ill., July 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Jack Falejczyk, a recent graduate of Elk Grove Village High School in Illinois was born blind. Falejczyk excelled in his high school's MobileMakersEdu, a program of Uncharted Learning, which trains students to code while creating ten working iOS apps using Swift language. He and his teacher did not allow his blindness to become a barrier in using his talents to learn valuable coding skills that will be applicable outside of the classroom.

"I was able to code without seeing the screen by using Apple's VoiceOver which reads the content of the Mac out loud to me," Falejczyk said. "I used headphones which sit near my ear, not in my ear, allowing me to hear the audio on the screen, my teammates and my teacher simultaneously."

Additionally, Falejczyk and his teammate placed third in a national competition in which they shared their knowledge by creating a video tutorial teaching other developers how to deploy an app. Falejczyk's success has inspired him to create additional applications to assist others who are sight impaired and will be studying software development at a local college in the fall.

The United Nations designated July 15 as World Youth Skills Day to promote the importance of developing practical skills in young people throughout the world.  To that end, MobileMakersEdu is aligned with this mission as they foster the development of real world skills in the classroom through experiential learning for all students.

With advances in technology to assist students with disabilities, the opportunity to empower all young people with the skills that are in demand in today's changing labor markets is real. The goal of the United Nations' World Youth Skills Day is filled with hope and promise. Through relevant education and training such as the MobileMakersEdu program, young people will have more opportunities to learn skills that are pertinent to both local and global economies.

For more information on programs and training, please visit:http://mobilemakersedu.org/programs/.

MobileMakersEdu is a program of Uncharted Learning a not for profit organization.  MobileMakersEdu is an Apple Professional Learning Provider and the curriculum is currently taught in over 40 schools across the United States.

SOURCE Uncharted Learning