MakeCode Arcade: Interesting environment for programming 2D games

Abstract

The pandemic situation of Covid-19 has a huge influence on all levels of educations. Primary and secondary teachers had many problems with starting distance learning in the Slovak Republic. Most of the schools had not been used any softwares for distance learning before Covid-19. Teachers of Computer Science had mostly a few advantages before other teachers with using ICT tools. But they had the same main problem - what or how they will teach for practical topics e. g. programming. The paper deals with using the online environment MakeCode Arcade for teaching programming in a block-based environment for pupils in primary schools. In this paper, we describe the MakeCode Arcade environment, a simple game for teaching programming, and our experience with this environment.