Fun MakeCode stuff for CS Education Week 2020

Posted on December 4th, 2020 by Jaqster

Hooray!!! It’s the end of 2020! And Computer Science Education Week is here!

We’ve got a bunch of fun MakeCode activities for students to do during the week, whether they’re at school or at home.

MakeCode in Minecraft

Minecraft: Education Edition is hosting a free coding world for anyone (you don’t need to buy a license or have an Office 365 account)!

Minecraft Demo Lesson

This year’s Hour of Code experience is called “A Tale of Two Villages” and is all about diversity and inclusion.

Students are presented with a set of coding challenges (like building a fence) which they have to solve with the help of their Agent robot.

Minecraft Hour of Code Lesson

Head over to https://education.minecraft.net/hour-of-code-2020 to download the game.

MakeCode Arcade

If 2D games are more your speed, check out the MakeCode Arcade Hour of Code activities at https://aka.ms/arcadeHOC. There are 3 fun challenges to get through:

Play, Design, Code buttons

  1. Play - Move the arrows to help Asphodel find her way through the maze!
  2. Design - Draw sprites and backgrounds to create your own version of an existing game
  3. Code - Follow a step-by-step tutorial to create your very own game from scratch!

After completing the challenges, students can print out their own Hour of Code certificates!

Hour of Code certificate

MakeCode Arcade Game Jam

There’s nothing like a bit of competition to inspire people to code! We’re running an Ocean themed Game Jam over the next couple weeks. Anyone can participate, and collaboration on building games is encouraged. Hurry up and submit your game! The competition ends on December 11th!

Ocean Jam banner

Learn more at https://arcade.makecode.com/gamejam/ocean.

Online Learning Resources

Whether it’s CS Education Week or any time, we’ve compiled some resources for online learning with MakeCode at https://makecode.com/online-learning. You’ll find coding how-to videos, tutorials and projects, as well as Educator resources for teaching computer science remotely.

Online Learning banner

If you have questions or would like to participate in the MakeCode community, please join the Forum or follow us on social @MSMakeCode.


Happy Making and Coding!

The MakeCode Team