Immersive Bootcamp Gains New Elective: Learn iOS App Development With Joseph DeCarlo

3/1/16 UPDATE: This is an old article and details of the elective program, including the instructor, have changed. Please contact DigitalCrafts directly with any questions.

Though he's been with us for some time now, I'm excited to finally (publicly) welcome Joseph DeCarlo to the team as our iOS App Development Elective instructor! Many of you may already know Joe from one of the several Meetup groups he organizes / co-organizes each month, including:

• The Atlanta iOS Developers Monthly Meetup (2,198 members and over 100 past meetups)
• The Atlanta Android Developers Monthly Meetup (1,088 members and 29 past meetups)
• The Atlanta Node.js Monthly Meetup (1,105 members and 32 past meetups)
• Go Users Group Atlanta (273 members, or "Gophers", and 19 past meetups)

Joe is a veteran, having served as an Army Ranger before beginning his career in technology.

Joe has been developing full-stack applications since the early 1990's. While his experience spans multiple languages and platforms, he's been focused on mobile platforms for over 5 years. In addition to moonlighting as an iOS App Development Instructor at DigitalCrafts, Joe is also the Lead Mobile Architect for a major news corporation here in town. Somehow, he also finds time to co-host his own podcast, Pseudocode, which is described as a "technical podcast that focuses on subject matter that is rarely learned from ways other than experience."

Introducing the iOS App Development Elective

For the most part, things haven't changed. We still focus on full-stack JavaScript and PHP web development from 9am - 6pm, but now our immersive bootcamp students will also have the awesome opportunity to learn native iOS app development from one of the best. (I'd be remiss if I didn't also give a quick shout-out to Rob Bunch, our main immersive instructor who is also the man.)

For those of you who have visited our site in the past, you might be wondering what happened to our part-time iOS Mobile Engineering course. When Jake and I started DigitalCrafts, we decided that with every decision, we would ask ourselves, "will this help our immersive students get jobs?" This is, and always will be, our highest priority. Cheesy as that sounds, we believe that's the only way we can compete as a school and build a sustainable business we feel good about (not to mention it's just the right thing to do, rather than striving for quantity over quality with the goal of a quick exit).

To that end, we recently began tossing around the idea of adding an elective to our Immersive Program. Employers often ask web developers if they have native iOS or Android experience, and the ability to develop native applications is becoming more and more in demand every year. We knew we were already asking a lot of our immersive students, but decided creating an optional elective might be the best way to let the really motivated students excel and distinguish themselves. We also decided that repurposing our part-time iOS class and curriculum was the best way to accomplish this goal. Unfortunately, we had to call all of our registered iOS part-time students to let them know class was canceled, and our sincerest apologies go out to them. We appreciate their (or your) understanding.

Students will learn Xcode, Storyboards, and Swift in addition to full-stack web development.

It wasn't an easy decision to cancel on our part-time students, but I already know we made the right decision. We called around to all of our currently enrolled immersive students, and thus far we have 100% participation in the additional 72 hours of class time. That blew our minds! It also cemented the idea as a must-have for our program going forward. While we only offer an iOS elective at the moment, we hope to add more elective options for our immersive students in the future.

Our immersive students who choose to participate in the iOS app development elective will receive a whopping 712 hours of instruction over a 16 week period. (Thank goodness for the small Christmas break in the middle!) Students will learn how to build native iOS apps using Swift, and they now have the option to incorporate their mobile development work into their final web projects. Maybe write an API to add server-side functionality to an app? Just thinking aloud here, but I'm excited and can't wait to see what they will do with their wide range of newfound skills!

Swift's syntax is fairly similar to JavaScript, one of our primary focuses.

To learn more about our immersive program or the iOS elective, just head here or give us a shout at (770) 858-5806. We'd also love to hear your feedback on the new elective, ideas for future electives, etc - just send an email to hello@digitalcrafts.com with your thoughts and ideas!

Thanks for reading,