Makecode offers a great set of tools for remote teaching that apply well to a 1:1 scenario where all your students have a robot at home, or to a remote robots scenario where you would like students to program a robot at your location.
There are two ways to manage student coding work with Makecode: micro:bit classroom, and integrations with learning management systems (LMS) such as Google Classroom, Teams, or Canvas. Watch a video on this from our professional development course, or scroll down to check out additional resources on micro:bit classroom and LMS integrations.
micro:bit classroom
micro:bit classroom is best when used during synchronous remote teaching. As a teacher, you create a classroom and invite your students to join it. Once a student has joined, you can provide them with pre-made example projects and virtually look over their shoulder as they are assembling their code. Learn more by watching the micro:bit foundation’s excellent overview:
Important note: Make sure to add the Hummingbird or Finch blocks to any starter programs you send to your students:
micro:bit classroom and Remote Robots
If you are using micro:bit classroom in a remote robots scenario, you will need to download the students’ completed code to your robot to show the code running on the robot to the student. Right now micro:bit classroom doesn’t allow teacher roles to directly download student code to a micro:bit, so you need to deploy a workaround: join your classroom as a student, from a browser running in incognito mode. Then in the teacher role, you can send other students’ code to the student you are logged in as. You can see a video of this workaround here.
Integration with a Learning Management System
Makecode’s capacity for easily sharing links or files allows it to be readily used with most Learning Management Systems to create and manage coding assignments. The micro:bit foundation has created tutorial videos specifically for Google Classroom, Canvas, Microsoft Teams, and seeSaw, but the methods used will apply to other LMSes.
Check out the LMS tutorial videos from the micro:bit foundation.
Important note: Make sure to add the Hummingbird or Finch blocks to any starter programs you send to your students: