Progressing

Once your skills have developed and you are comfortable with Scratch and blocks based coding, it will be time to move onto the next level. The MakeCode platform by Microsoft is the perfect platform.

There are several different variations of the MakeCode platform, each specialising for a specific topic or experience. Each variation however provides the same programming experience allowing you to code in either Blocks, Python or JavaScript (strictly its static TypeScript).

The power of the MakeCode platform is that you can begin your journey starting out using Blocks but then switch over to Python or JavaScript as you progress. Another key feature of the MakeCode platform is that you code can always be downloaded onto a supported device to run.

I really like MakeCode Arcade as it provides an easy to use game engine to create arcade style games. These can then be downloaded onto a small handheld console to play. MakeCode Arcade also remains very visual and interactive allowing you to develop your skills in an intuitive way. For my recommended starting materials, see MakeCode Arcade below.

For a more physical computing experience, MakeCode also offer the BBC micro:bit platform and MakeCode Mindstorms.

There are many MakeCode platforms available and these are my favourites:

MakeCode Arcade

All of the following MakeCode Arcade materials are those that I have written (often hurriedly) for my own Code Club. Most of the materials need updating as the available blocks have changed but they should still be useful as the basis for a lesson. Most will take between 30 and 60 minutes to make. I will be reworking each of these as well as adding new materials over the coming months. The materials are marked as alpha, beta or final based on the quality/stage of development of the material. The alpha materials will be first stage PDFs, beta are updated web based materials but not necessarily battle tested in the Coding Club yet so may contain errors and final will be the tested materials.

Stage 1 - Basic Blocks

1 - Chase, alpha

2 - Catch, alpha

3 - Smash, alpha

4 - Slide Puzzle

5 - Jump, coming

Stage 2 - Advanced Blocks

1 - Blaster, alpha

2 - Worm, alpha

3 - Burger Blast, alpha

4 - Invaders, alpha

5 - Treasure, coming

6 - Memory, alpha

7 - Mouse, coming

Stage 3 - Self Directed Learning

1 - Invasion of the Alien Ducks, final (errata)

Published works

Invasion of the Alien Ducks

Errata for Invasion of the Alien Ducks.

This is the first material that I've produced which is suitable for wide distribution. It's a MakeCode Arcade Blocks worksheet and is suitable for anyone that has some experience of blocks programming.

The PDF is available here and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/. The materials are designed to be used in printed form. As this is over 40 pages long and image heavy, I have published it on Amazon where you can buy a printed copy for £4.50.