Summer 2026 – MakeCode Professional Development
Posted on April 6th, 2026 by Jaqster
Planning your summer schedule? Make sure to register for some of these FREE MakeCode Professional Development opportunities.
AP Computer Science Principles
Free, online training to help prepare educators to teach the AP CS Principles with Microsoft MakeCode course for the 2026-2027 academic year. During this week-long workshop, participants will gain familiarity with the Microsoft MakeCode Arcade programming interface and understand how the curriculum prepares students for the AP Exam and Create Performance Task. This workshop is a mix of asynchronous study tasks and live learning. Sessions will be offered in both June and July – please register for the week that is most convenient for you:
Intro to CS with MakeCode Arcade
Join us at the InfoSys Pathfinders Summer Institute for an in-depth look at teaching Introduction to Computer Science in a fun, playful way with MakeCode Arcade. The Intro to CS with MakeCode Arcade curriculum is free and designed to be taught as a full year introductory programming class. As part of the registration for this course, all applicants are required to complete an acceptance letter from their school to participate and will receive a handheld Arcade game device! This workshop will be offered during the weeks of June 15th-19th and July 20th-24th.
Learn more and register on the InfoSys Pathfinders Summer Institute website (you will need to create an account).
Microsoft MakeCode Summer Learning Series
Don’t have time for a full week curriculum workshop? Drop in for one of our Summer Learning Series webinars for Educators. And even if you can’t make it live, if you register, we’ll send you the recording and post the video on our YouTube channel for on-demand viewing later.
🔵 Top 10 little-known features of MakeCode
Friday June 5th – 9am Pacific / 11am Central / 12pm Eastern / 4pm UTC
Topic – Join us for this fun countdown of the top 10 little-known (but very useful) features of MakeCode. Whether you are a newbie or a power user, we hope you walk away with some new features to put to use!
Note: this content applies for all MakeCode editors (micro:bit, Minecraft and Arcade).
🔵 MakeCode localization
Friday June 12th – 9am Pacific / 11am Central / 12pm Eastern / 4pm UTC
Topic – Do your students speak in a language other than English, and are you interested in helping translate MakeCode for them? Please join us for a walk through of MakeCode’s localization platform where anyone can be a translator!
Note: this content applies for all MakeCode editors (micro:bit, Minecraft and Arcade).
🔵 Saving and Sharing projects
Friday June 26th – 9am Pacific / 11am Central / 12pm Eastern / 4pm UTC
Topic – In this webinar, we will walk through the different ways to save and share MakeCode projects and discuss the benefits and drawbacks of each approach. We’ll talk about saving projects in the browser cache, in the cloud, to a local file or in GitHub. Then we’ll show the different types of project share links that exist and how you can embed projects in a web page. We’ll close out with talking about MakeCode privacy and safety policies.
Note: this content applies for all MakeCode editors (micro:bit, Minecraft and Arcade).
🔵 How to create a MakeCode tutorial
Thursday July 2nd – 9am Pacific / 11am Central / 12pm Eastern / 4pm UTC
Topic – Join us for a fun hands-on workshop on how to write tutorials in MakeCode! No prior experience required. Come with your own idea for a tutorial, or use an example project. You’ll learn how to write markdown to create a MakeCode tutorial and then publish it live!
Note: this content applies for all MakeCode editors (micro:bit, Minecraft and Arcade).
🔵 Tips and tricks for debugging
Friday July 10th – 9am Pacific / 11am Central / 12pm Eastern / 4pm UTC
Topic – Everyone gets stuck sometimes. And even though it can be frustrating, it’s a great opportunity for learning! In this webinar we’ll talk about troubleshooting as a critical skill to teach/learn in computer science, and specifically some tools and techniques for debugging in MakeCode.
Note: this content applies for all MakeCode editors (micro:bit, Minecraft and Arcade).
🔵 Top 10 student errors in MakeCode Arcade
Friday July 17th – 9am Pacific / 11am Central / 12pm Eastern / 4pm UTC
Topic – MakeCode Arcade is a simple but powerful game development platform where students can create amazingly complex and creative retro-style arcade games. But there are some common pitfalls that we’ve seen over and over again among students new to the platform. Join us for an entertaining top 10 countdown of student oopsies! And learn how you can respond to help your students through their learning journeys.
Note: this content applies specifically to MakeCode Arcade.
🔵 MakeCode Arcade Hardware Showcase
Friday July 31st – 9am Pacific / 11am Central / 12pm Eastern / 4pm UTC
Topic – You won’t want to miss this “unboxing” experience to see all the different MakeCode Arcade hand-held devices available to play your students’ games. We’ll walk through each one and give our thoughts on the features and specifications. We’ll leave time at the end for questions, sharing of classroom hardware experiences, and feedback.
Note: this content applies specifically to MakeCode Arcade.
🔵 MakeCode for Minecraft: All about Positions
Friday August 7th – 9am Pacific / 11am Central / 12pm Eastern / 4pm UTC
Topic – Positions and 3D coordinates can be one of the first stumbling blocks to learning to code in Minecraft. In this webinar, we’ll start with the basics, discuss the different types of positions and when to use each type, and then do some fun code-along exercises to deepen our understanding of positions and how to programmatically build cool stuff in Minecraft!
Note: this content applies specifically to MakeCode for Minecraft Education.
🔵 Data Science with MakeCode for the micro:bit
Friday August 21st – 9am Pacific / 11am Central / 12pm Eastern / 4pm UTC
Topic – Join us for this introductory session on using the micro:bit and MakeCode for data science experiments. We’ll talk through the data science process and how to structure lessons using the micro:bit to collect environmental data, and then analyze and interpret the results. Attendees will walk away with some classroom-ready lessons and projects they can use with their students.
Note: this content applies specifically to MakeCode for the micro:bit.
🔵 Physical Computing and AI with MakeCode for the micro:bit
Friday August 28th – 9am Pacific / 11am Central / 12pm Eastern / 4pm UTC
Topic – Looking for a fun, engaging way to teach AI? Bring AI and Machine Learning concepts to life with the micro:bit and MakeCode! Join us for an interactive, hands-on learning session where we’ll walk through some example lessons using micro:bit CreateAI to collect movement data, train a model, and then code using custom gestures.
Note: this content applies specifically to MakeCode for the micro:bit.
Minecraft Teacher Academy
Get certified to teach with Minecraft in the classroom. Learn essential skills on how to incorporate gameplay into any curriculum through a series of on-demand courses including AI Foundations for Educators.
Micro:bit Professional Development
Micro:bit Professional Development webinars are free online training courses that support you to develop your computing and micro:bit knowledge on your own time and at your own pace.
Other Resources
📑 Teach AP Computer Science Principles with Microsoft MakeCode
Can’t make it to the week-long workshop for AP CS Principles this summer? No problem! Take this abbreviated online course to learn more about the curriculum and how to teach it.
📑 Engage learners through games with MakeCode Arcade
In this online course, you’ll learn about the benefits of game-based learning and how games are used in Microsoft MakeCode Arcade to provide meaningful instruction to develop computer science concepts and skills.
📑 Begin Python coding in Minecraft with MakeCode
Educators will learn the basics of Python, a text-based programming language, in Minecraft Education to build out coding knowledge to facilitate Python coding in the classroom.
📺 MakeCode YouTube
Browse our collection of videos created specifically for Educators or jump into one of our many Playlists.
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