It’s that time of the year…#HourOfCode2021
Over the past little while I’ve been playing around with a variety of coding platforms - sussing out which might spark student interest. I was pretty excited to see Makecode Arcade offering for this year’s Hour of Code. I love the old school retro arcade game vibe this platform offers. Needless to say - I had to dive in!
All you need to get started is a computer with internet access. The Save the Forest Skills Map offers carefully scaffolded tutorials to walk you and your students through the coding experience. From the landing page - be sure to click on Learning Outcomes before hoping into coding. I know - it’s hard not to dive right in - BUT this page outlines all the skills to be covered in the activity AND at the very bottom of the page there’s a link to More Teacher Resources - where the really NB teacher stuff lives!
Save the Forest Skills Map - Learning Outcomes
More Teacher Resources include:
resource links to information about forest fires, how to fight them etc.
webinar information to during Computer Science week to support your Makecode Arcade learning,
power points to get you going,
and most importantly a teacher prep doc, with objectives and standards to support your HoC lesson!
Your fire bomber will be coded in block code. The tutorials walk coders through the steps - offering Immersive Reader or visual clues - just click on the light bulb. One reason I love the MakeCode coding platform is that the blocks are colour coded to correspond to what I like to call the drawers of code. Look at the colour and dive into that drawer to find your block.
Immersive Reader and hints
Each step on the Skills Map offers students an opportunity to reflect on the coding they did in the last step. MakeCode makes it easy for students to record their thinking by right clicking on the workspace or even on a block of code, selecting Add Comment and explain their thinking. So easy to then share a screenshot or the actual piece of code with their teacher.
All that’s left is to remix the code and make the game your very own!
Did I get my firebomber to work? You betcha!! I’m thinking career change!!
Everything you need to get started is here.