Treehouse Broadens Student Learning Options with Release of New Swift Courses and Android App

PORTLAND, Ore., Sept. 17, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Treehouse, an online education platform that teaches anyone how to code, today expanded its learning platform with the release of new Swift programming courses and an Android application, both currently available to all students.

"Programming languages and the ways in which students learn are both constantly changing --and that's what makes this such an exciting time," said Ryan Carson, co-founder and CEO of Treehouse. "By teaching the latest coding languages and adding new mobile options, we're continuously improving and evolving our educational offerings to help students "skill up" to fill technology jobs of the future. We're committed to offering all of our students the affordable and accessible education needed to succeed in today's growing technology industry."

As one of the first comprehensive video-based learning courses available, Treehouse's Swift courses, much like the language itself, are easy to use, designed for beginner coders and completely self-paced. Comprised of 71 instructional videos, Treehouse offers a series of four educational courses designed to help students master Apple's new coding language quickly. It is estimated that students with no prior programming experience can learn the language in approximately one month if roughly five hours per week are dedicated to Treehouse learning.

"Since Swift is a new language to everyone--even to advanced developers--this creates many new opportunities and levels the playing field for students and developers," said Amit Bijlani, Treehouse Swift program creator. "It's a very exciting time to learn programming. If you've ever wanted to build an iOS app or raise your visibility as a developer, now is the time to learn the language."

In addition to broadening curricula, Treehouse now offers students wider access to its programming courses, like Swift, through an Android mobile application. The app, compatible with all Android-based mobile devices, is free and currently available to download through the Google Play Store.

The release of an Android app stems from the success of Treehouse's more than 130,000 iPad application downloads in less than one year and the company's mission to foster a quality mobile education environment that allows all students to continue learning when they're on the go. The Android app supports the same features and tools that iPad students currently enjoy to "learn, practice and earn" through a dashboard that is fully-optimized for mobile and Web. Students will experience seamless access to Treehouse courses through the following features:

• More than 1,000 course videos providing instruction on Web design, coding, business application and more. Course videos are presented in a customized player that gives students access to full screen videos, transcripts, and teaching notes throughout lessons.
• Student quizzes, practice exercises and challenges to retain course information.
• A customized keyboard giving students access to special keys when writing code.
• As Treehouse students master coding concepts, earn course badges, complete projects and become Treehouse Verified coders, they can share their progress with potential employers and recruiters via their profile page.

"Providing a great mobile experience for both platforms is important to us. With two mobile versions now available, we're giving our students the opportunity to learn wherever or whenever they choose," said Joe Steele, Treehouse Android application developer. "Based on the success we saw from the iPad application, we knew there was wide student demand for the creation of an Android-based app. We're excited to offer added convenience for our current students and hope this makes learning to code even easier for future students."

For more information about Treehouse's new Swift courses or its new Android app, visit teamtreehouse.com.

About Treehouse

The Treehouse mission is to bring affordable technology education to people everywhere, in order to help them achieve their dreams and change the world. As members of the Treehouse community, students can learn to build websites, create iPhone and Android apps, build Web apps with Ruby on Rails and PHP, learn about user experience and how to start a business and much more. Through 1000+ video tutorials, quizzes and code challenges created by expert teachers, students can learn to code in languages like Objective-­C, HTML, CSS, PHP, Ruby, JavaScript, Python, Swift and SQL. For more information, visit teamtreehouse.com.

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SOURCE Treehouse