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Hi Megan,
Chase the Pizza tutorial on the MakeCode Arcade website is a fun one and I like how clearly you have tied it to PE. Framing it around reaction time, hand-eye coordination and decision-making is a nice way to give the game a real learning purpose.
Your debugging account was good too, testing, making small changes and testing again until the character and the pizza behaved. That step by step fixing is exactly the habit you want the children to pick up.
One thought for your next one. It would be worth building a game from scratch in one of the three set styles we worked through in this module, a timed catch or collect, a chaser or an invader.
Looking forward to seeing what you come up with. 🙂
Hi Helen,
Please watch the MakeCode Arcade website tour video in the module or follow the steps below to share your MakeCode Arcade project link:
- Open your project in MakeCode Arcade.
- Select the Share icon in the top-right corner.
- Add a title for your project.
- You can also add a thumbnail image or animated GIF, but this is optional.
- Select Share Project.
- Copy the link that appears and paste it into your forum post.
Please note that this link is anonymous and is not connected to your MakeCode account. Make sure to copy or save the link, as it cannot be recovered if it is lost.
The link is also a snapshot of your project at the time you share it. If you make any changes afterwards, you will need to create and share a new link with the updated version.
Anonymous share links cannot normally be deleted or unpublished.
Hi Kate,
Cat and Mouse is a great little chaser game idea and I really like how you framed your learning objective around testing and balancing the game. That focus on finding where it is too hard or too easy and adjusting until it plays well is a lovely, honest description of the design process.
Your debugging account was great too. Spotting that the cat was frozen while the mouse moved, fixing it, then noticing the ten seconds was too tight shows you were working through one problem at a time which is just how it should be done.
Two small tweaks that might help. First, it is worth adding a block to keep your player on screen, otherwise the cat can wander outside the screen boundaries. Second, you could set a fixed starting position for the mouse. At the moment both sprites spawn on the same spot by default which is why you score a point the instant the game starts. Giving the mouse its own starting position fixes that.
Hi Michelle,
I love this. Two Truths and a Lie, AI edition is such a clever hook because the game format gets the children reading closely and arguing their case without it ever feeling like a comprehension exercise. Slipping one AI-generated false statement in among the three is a lovely way to make the accuracy point real and having them fact check means they are practising exactly the habit you want to build.
Your critical question is well pitched too since that idea of something sounding right while being wrong is right at the core of AI literacy.
One question back to you. When groups fact check, would it help to ask them to note what tipped them off, whether it was their own knowledge or the trusted source that settled it? That makes their reasoning visible .
🙂Hi Aisling,
This is such a strong, grounded plan. I really like this idea!
The fact that it grew out of a real issue in your school, pupils pasting ChatGPT text straight into projects, makes it instantly meaningful and comparing an AI text against Britannica School or Scoilnet is a brilliant way to make the accuracy point land. Children get to catch the errors themselves rather than just being told AI can be wrong/hallucinate.
Your critical question is spot on too because that gap between looking correct and being correct is right at the heart of AI literacy for this age group.
One question back to you. When pupils spot inaccuracies, would it be worth asking them where they think the AI got it wrong, whether it made something up or mixed two things together? That nudges them from spotting errors into thinking about why they happen.
Hi Catherine,
Burstin Balloons is such a fun choice and I have come across this one before so I know how nicely the two player mode works. There is something great about a game that gets two children competing side by side and the carnival setting really suits that playful energy.
One thought for the classroom. If your pupils do not have much coding experience yet, the three set styles are easier options to start with, a timed catch or collect, a chaser or an invader. Those give them a clear, contained structure to build up block by block.
Hi Colm,
I love this and it’s a great one for computational thinking. The Step Counter is one of those tutorials that instantly clicks with children because it links code to something happening in their own bodies. The running total gives them a lovely, tangible sense of a variable updating in real time which is one of the trickier ideas to make concrete.
Where this really shines is the iSTEM investigation you have built around it. Turning it into a fair test, does where you wear the micro:bit change the count, is everyone’s step count the same over the same distance, is a brilliant move. That question about accuracy pushes pupils from just using the code into interrogating it and collecting, comparing and displaying the data ties the Maths in naturally.
One suggestion you might consider, you could get pupils to agree a fixed distance and each do three trials. Then compare their averages rather than a single count. That introduces the idea of reliability and gives you richer data to work with.
Hi Niamh,
Really enjoyed this. HOC Generation AI is a great choice and I like that you focused on the idea that AI is designed by people and should be fair, safe and responsible. That framing is exactly right for primary pupils because it puts them in the position of thinking critically.
Your plan to build in extra discussion time after each challenge is well judged. I also love your plan to pair pupils up so they talk through the coding problems together.
If you try this our in your classroom in the future, I would love to know how you get on. 🙂
Hi Felicity,
I really enjoyed playing Healthy Lunch Hunt. The SPHE link is lovely and clear and sending the player around the playground to collect healthy foods is a fun, active way into a balanced diet topic. I especially liked that you added the splash screen and the text at the start to explain the game.
Your debugging account was great too. Spotting that the score would not increase because the final block still said player rather than projectile is exactly the kind of close reading that debugging is all about and adjusting the fall timing so the items were catchable shows you were tuning the feel of the game as well as fixing what was broken.
I enjoyed it so much that I had a little play with it myself to take it a step or two further and I have popped my version below. I made the apple the food to collect and the chicken drumstick the enemy, so when the player overlaps an apple they score a point, but overlapping a drumstick costs them a life.
Game link: https://makecode.com/_4oYD8b666Ace
Hi Lorna,
Apple Picker Forest is a lovely, clear game and I really like how you have linked it to healthy eating and living things.
I really like how you described thinking through the order of instructions, creating the player, then the falling apples, then the scoring. That is algorithm design in action and it is lovely that building the game gave you such a concrete feel for how coding is put together step by step.
Hi Lucy,
Lovely idea. Turning the smiley and sad face tutorial into a Feelings Check-In device is a really thoughtful way to give the code a genuine purpose and the wellbeing link makes it meaningful for the children. The inputs and outputs also give them a clear, concrete feel for how a digital system responds to what you tell it.
I really like that you built it around Plan, Do, Review. That structure turns a nice idea into a proper design cycle and getting the children to test, evaluate and improve before sharing is exactly where the computational thinking comes alive.
Hi Linda,
I really enjoyed reading this and your honesty is refreshing. Starting with Monkey Chase, hitting a wall with your wish list and then stripping back to something simpler with Dog and Bone Adventure is such a valuable lesson and it is exactly the one the children will need too. Start small, get it working, then build. You have basically lived the iteration process yourself.
I love that you put yourself in the minds of the children as you built it. Keeping the objective clear with a dog chasing bones and a simple counter is spot on for a first game and it shows you were thinking about how they would follow the instructions, not just about the code.
One suggestion to build on what you have. Since your learning objective is about a timed activity, adding a countdown timer would strengthen that link nicely and give the game a bit more challenge. The children then have to collect as many bones as they can before time runs out which naturally opens up comparing scores and simple data handling, right where you wanted the Maths to sit.
Hi Rebecca,
Space Catcher is a great fit for a timed catch game and I really like how naturally it links to your Science objective.
I especially liked how you adjusted the speed and spawn rate by trial and error until the game played well. That is a lovely example of iteration, that cycle of making a change, testing it and refining until it feels right.
One small suggestion to strengthen the learning link. You could ask children to predict what will happen if they make the asteroids fall faster, then let them change the value and test whether their prediction was right.
Hi Rachel,
Teddy Catch is a gorgeous idea for young children. A friendly teddy on a bright playground catching hearts and stars is instantly appealing and I love that you built in good and bad items since that gives the children real pattern recognition to do as they play. Your curriculum links are lovely and clear too especially the way you have mapped sequencing and cause and effect onto what actually happens on screen.
I had a play of your game and it is not quite running yet which is honestly the perfect situation for the debugging process you listed. My best suggestion is to head back into the tutorial and rebuild it in stages. You could follow the steps one at a time and test as you go, open the finished code slide and compare it to yours block by block or watch the video tutorial for the catch style game and pause as you build. Any of those three will help you spot exactly where it is getting stuck and you will have a working game at the end.
Hi Rebecca,
Really strong reflection to read. Using digital tools across literacy, maths and SESE and tying them back to the curriculum is a genuine strength and the fact that you happily trial new tools keeps your practice fresh.
I like your area to develop. Moving from using tech to support teaching into using it for assessment is where it starts to give you something back because you get a clear read on where the children are. I especially like that you have thought about pupils reflecting on their own learning since that is often where the deepest thinking happens.
Your action to use a digital assessment tool once a week for six weeks feels really realistic. That clear timeframe gives you a proper run at it rather than a one-off try.
One question to help you focus. When you use, for example, those quizzes or polls, would it help to decide in advance what you will do with the results, say revisiting a tricky concept the next day if lots of children miss it? That closes the loop from checking understanding to acting on it and those decisions make lovely evidence for SSE.
Looking forward to seeing how you get on with the rest of the course. 🙂
