After hearing about CodeCombat on a weekly get together named ‘Thirsty Thursdays’ on Hangouts I was interested, better yet, more than interested!
Time to explore…
With a healthy dose of skepticism and critique ready to be shared I signed up, and that’s where I saw the first useful feature, a spark of the brilliance to come; You can use Google+ To sign up! No extra passwords or logins to remember, WhooHoo!
Great! All my students have a Google account, so that makes my job easier. Guess the critique goes out the window.
Next, I chose to learn Python, as this is a language highly requested by my ‘Game’ loving pupils. (Battlefield uses Python for all it’s addons and Minecraft:Pi Edition was fully coded in Python) and what happened next was history.
The Geek(read:Nerd) inside of me came out, the gamer was alive again and I literally rushed through the levels of Code Combat.
The interface of the game looks inviting and has a real MMORPG feel to it. Below you can see a screenshot of the level selection screen.
Now, I can hear you think, how does this teach coding, it’s just a game. But nothing is what it seems… Rather than pressing a button your character follows the code you program.
Below you see a screenshot of the actual game-play in which I have to code the steps of my ‘hero’.
In other words, if you believe in the merits of ‘Gamification’ of education (which you should) try CodeCombat! You will love it, but not as much as your students will. They will embrace it and learn how to code using gaming concept they already know.
Find CodeCombat here: https://codecombat.com
Find out more about Thirsty Thursdays on Google+ Here:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/111478728720313703818
Or watch some of the previous episodes here:
Episode 01: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6oIg_-R3yg
Episode 02: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Htjp7F2s5dM
Episode 03: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNdwoKK7vss
Episode 04: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWeuCZUSyRA
If you want more information about CodeCombat and answers to the FAQ of teachers visit their teachers page here: https://codecombat.com/teachers