Code.org FAQs

Previously, students who finished the last puzzle of a stage would be automatically pushed along to the next stage. We don’t want to take away students’ ability to see what’s next, but we also wanted to help teachers keep their class on track. That’s why we dropped in a “speed bump” that gives students constructive activities to explore after they complete a stage.We call this speed bump lesson extras.

To turn on lesson extras for a section of yours:

- visit your list of sections (at studio.code.org/home )

- click the down-facing chevron arrow to the far right of one of your sections

- choose 'edit section details'

- assign a course that allows for Lesson Extras, which will then show an on/off option for Lesson Extras

Courses that support lesson extras are:

Courses A-F

Courses 1-4

Express and Pre-express courses

20-hour Accelerated course

CS Discoveries Units 3 and 6

According to our Terms of Service, we do not grant any third party groups the right to use the Code.org name or any of the Code.org trademarks, logos, domain names, and other distinctive brand assets without permission. You can visit our Brand Assets Usage Policy page forinformation on how to obtain permission and how to use our brand assets.

Where appropriate, we encourage the use of the Hour of Code logo, which you can download at: https://hourofcode.com/promote/resources#logo.

Note that "Hour of Code" itself is trademarked to avoid abuse. Usage of the Hour of Code logo must abide by the following rules:

1. Any reference to "Hour of Code" should be used in a fashion that doesn't suggest that it's your own brand name, but rather referencing the Hour of Code as a grassroots movement. Allowable use: "Participate in the Hour of Code at ExampleCompany.com". Prohibited use: "Try Hour of Code by ExampleCompany".

2. Use a "TM" superscript in the most prominent places you mention "Hour of Code", both on your web site and in app descriptions.

3. Include language on the page (or in the the footer), including links to the CSEdWeek and Code.org web sites, that says the following:

“The 'Hour of Code' is a nationwide initiative by Computer Science Education Week and Code.org to introduce millions of students to one hour of computer science and computer programming.”

4. No use of "Hour of Code" in app names.

If your school only allows internet access to certain websites or URLs, you should let your IT administrator know about a change we are making this summer to increase your student’s privacy for the upcoming school year.

This change will not prevent your students from using Code.org videos, but it may affect their ability to view video captions and translations. Please read below for details.

What is the change?

To better support student and teacher privacy, we are taking additional steps when it come to our videos. The YouTube videos in our curriculum and website already take advantage of certain settings such as disabling advertising or auto-playing other videos. Starting in mid-late July, we will also be updating our site to leverage the YouTube “Privacy Enhanced Mode”. This mode allows us to play YouTube videos without using cookies to track viewing behavior, which means viewing activity isn’t collected by Google to personalize the viewing experience on YouTube.

What is the impact?

This is a great change for our users, but it does mean that your IT administrator may need to adjust some settings. The ability to play videos will not be affected. However, it is possible that your classroom will be unable to access the YouTube version of our videos which contain the Closed Captioning and Translations functionality, and instead be routed to our fallback player which simply serves up the video without these additional features.

What IT settings might need to be changed by teachers?

In order to be able to view videos via YouTube (leveraging the “Enhanced Privacy Mode”) and receive the benefits of Closed Captioning and Translations, the following domain may need to be in the allow list for your school: (https://youtube-nocookie.com/*) . Note that most schools will not need to make any changes.

To see if a change is necessary, play the video in this lesson and look for the closed captioning button in the bottom right corner. If you see the closed captioning “CC” button after starting the video, then you’re all set and there's no need to make any updates!

or the full IT requirements and instructions on how to enable YouTube

If the “CC” button is not there, it means that you have been routed to the fallback player and your students will be unable to access the Closed Captioning and Translation features - your IT administrator will need to make an update to allow the "https://youtube-nocookie.com/*" domain. Please see this resource f.

When getting started on Code.org as a teacher, you'll first want to find the right course for your students to work through. Visit our courses page to find this interactive chart on what courses would be most applicable for a given grade or grade range.

Click here to view this article in Spanish.

We offer several shorter Hour of Code courses, and longer main courses (listed above in the chart) which have accompanying curriculum and in-depth lesson plans. You can find all accompanying curriculum for all of our courses at curriculum.code.org. On that same courses page, you'll find links to each of our Hour of Code activities (updated each Fall), and links to various tools and resources for your classroom, including:

Once you've decided on a course for your students, you can:

Create a class section. Learn more

Assign an existing class section to one of our courses. Learn more.

You can change which course or unit a section of students is assigned to in two different places:

From your homepage (studio.code.org/home) when you're signed in - recommended if you're updating many sections to *different* courses or units

From the course or unit you want to assign that section to - recommended if you're updating many sections to the *same* course or unit

Assigning a section to a course or unit and keeping that assignment up-to-date as the class progresses is helpful for two reasons:

It ensures that your students will start in the right place when they sign in: Students in a section will always start in the course or unit they were assigned to when they sign in. Only one course can be assigned to a section at a time, but students can continue to access any other course at any time by visiting their homepage (studio.code.org/home) once they sign in.

It makes it easier for you to view a section's most recent progress in the Teacher Dashboard: When you view progress for a section in the Teacher Dashboard, each section will default to the course or unit they are currently assigned to. You can always change the course you're viewing progress for at any time using the "Course or Unit" dropdown list.

Option 1 - Updating section assignment from your homepage

This option is recommended if you need to update many sections to *different* courses or units at the same time.

From your list of sections on the teacher homepage, click the down-facing arrow on the far right of each section.

Click the 'edit section details' option. This will open a new window where you can edit that section's settings and change the assigned course or unit.

Option 2 - From the course or unit you want to assign to your section

This option is recommended if you need to update many sections to *the same* course or unit at the same time.

Go to the course or unit overview page for the materials you want to assign

CS Principles

CS Discoveries

CS Fundamentals - from this page, go to "view course" for the Course you want to teach

Select the section you want to assign the course or unit to from the Current Section drop-down at the top of the page.

Note: any sections in the drop-down with a green checkmark next to them are already assigned to that course or unit

Tap the orange "Assign to section" button to assign the current section to the course or unit you're viewing. The "Assign to section" button should turn green and say "assigned" when it has been successfully assigned to the section

If you want to quickly undo the assignment you just did, hover over the green "assigned" button until it says "Unassign" and tap it again to unassign that section from the current course or unit

NOTE: you don't need to unassign a section from a course or unit before assigning that section to a new course or unit.

The latest version of our Dance Party Hour of Code tutorial can be found from the main http://code.org/dance page or you can go directly to the first level by going to http://studio.code.org/s/dance-2019/reset

If you're looking for the 2018 version of Dance Party, you can still access it! Part 1 of the 2018 Dance Party Hour of Code tutorial is accessed via http://studio.code.org/s/dance/reset and Part 2 is accessed via http://studio.code.org/s/dance-extras/reset

We are currently working on getting more languages supported for the latest version of Dance Party so if you don't see support for your language, feel free to check out the 2018 version to see if your language is supported. As always, if you'd like to help translate Dance Party, please go here !

You can find the new Hour of Code: Dance Party activity at code.org/dance !

To find previous version of Dance Party, see this article

This article is intended to help answer frequently asked questions about using Maker Toolkit.

What is Maker Toolkit?

Maker Toolkit is an add-on on top of App Lab, our block-to-text app development environment. Maker Toolkit provides of a special set of commands that allow student apps to communicate with external hardware. Maker Toolkit is currently optimized to work with the Adafruit Circuit Playground.

What is the Adafruit Circuit Playground?

The Circuit Playground is a small microcontroller board with LEDs, buttons, and sensors built in. Based on the popular Arduino platform, the Circuit Playground enables students to get up and running quickly with physical computing without worrying about many of the traditional barriers to entry. You can read more about it on our Circuit Playground page here.

What are the software requirements for Maker Toolkit?

The Maker Toolkit is currently supported on Windows, Chrome OS, and Mac OS. There are slightly different software requirements depending on which OS you are using.

Windows:

Standalone Code.org Maker App (Latest download link will be available here ).

Adafruit Windows driver

Chrome OS:

The Code.org Maker Toolkit Chrome App

Mac OS:

Standalone Code.org Maker App (Latest download link will be available here ).

Visit the Maker Toolkit setup page for the latest links to the required software.

How do I set up Maker Toolkit on my computer?

You can find the streamlined instructions to set up Maker Toolkit for your browser on the Maker Toolkit setup page. We have also provided the instructions below.

Windows / Mac OS:

Install the standalone Code.org Maker app. Get the latest download link for the app from here.

Open up the Code.org Maker app and sign in to Code.org as you normally would on your browser.

Plug in your Circuit Playground board. You should now be ready to use Maker Toolkit with App Lab within the Code.org Maker App.

Not working? Check out our section on "Debugging common issues."

Chrome OS:

Install the Code.org Serial Connector Chrome App extension.

Plug in your Circuit Playground board. You should now be ready to use Maker Toolkit with App Lab within Google Chrome.

If a dialog asking for permission for Code Studio to connect to the Chrome App pops up, click Accept.

Not working? Check out our section on "Debugging common issues."

How do I enable Maker Toolkit in App Lab?

Maker Toolkit should already be enabled on relevant Code.org lessons. To enable it within a standalone App Lab project, follow these steps:

Go to the App Lab project you want to use or create a new one.

Click on the settings cog icon on the purple Toolbox header:

[email protected]

Click "Enable Maker Toolkit (BETA)."

Click "Enable" in the warning dialog that pops up:

You will know that Maker Toolkit is enabled if you two new categories in your toolbox called "Maker" and "Circuit."

If you decide that you want to disable Maker Toolkit, follow steps 2-3 above (except that the menu will say "Disable Maker Toolkit" instead).

Debugging common issues

If something seems to not be working on the App Lab webpage, try the following steps to work around issues that come up:

Try refreshing the App Lab webpage.

Try un-plugging and re-plugging the board, and refreshing the webpage.

Double check that you followed all of the computer setup steps.

Visit the Maker Toolkit setup page and make sure all the steps are lighting up as green (e.g. your board is showing up as connectable). Here’s how to get to the page:

Windows / Mac OS: Click on the setup icon in the menu from the Maker Toolkit app:

Chrome OS: Navigate to this page.

Check the list of common mistakes below.

Here are a list of common mistakes that lead to issues with connecting to Maker Toolkit:

(Windows / Mac OS only): You are not using Maker Toolkit in the standalone Code.org app

If you are using Windows / Mac OS, make sure you are not trying to use Maker Toolkit in your regular browser. We currently only support Maker Toolkit within the standalone Maker Toolkit app on these platforms.

Maker Toolkit is not enabled

If you are on App Lab and do not see toolbox categories for “Maker” and “Circuit,” that means Maker Toolkit is not enabled. There are instructions earlier in this page on how to enable Maker Toolkit.

The Circuit Playground does not have the right firmware sketch installed

It’s possible that your board did not come with the right software already installed. If this is the case, check the back of the board to see which board you have.

Installing the Firmata sketches below requires Mac OS X or Windows, and will not work on Chromebooks

If you have the Circuit Playground Classic, install the Circuit Playground Firmata sketch with these instructions.

If you have the Circuit Playground Express, install the Circuit Playground Firmata sketch with these instructions.

You may need to restart the computer before App Lab can connect to the board successfully.

If you are still running into problems, email us at .

How should I choose what student activities to assess / check?

Code.org course materials contain a variety of assessment opportunities that can be used formatively (to check for understanding) or summatively (for evaluation). Sometimes students will submit their work on these levels online through Code.org, and in other cases, they’ll work offline on paper, or in other, in-person activities.

Almost all student activities in Code.org curriculum allow for teachers to check for understanding, but starting in the 2019 - 2020 versions of our CS Principles and CS Discoveries courses, we’ve also nominated select levels or specific locations within lessons as recommended assessment opportunities. These locations were chosen because they allow students to demonstrate learning in a variety of ways and represent good places for teachers to check in on student understanding of key concepts.

You can learn about recommended assessment opportunities in Lesson Plans under the Assessment Opportunities header (CSD-only), or by looking for a check-mark icon ( Viewing student progress ) in the Lesson Plan.

You can also see which levels are recommended assessment opportunities in the progress pane of the teacher dashboard and on unit overview pages. Typically, these opportunities are marked with a checkmark icon and the level bubbles are filled in with solid purple when students have completed them.

Teacher dashboard

Unit Overview Pages

Can I look at the work my students did and leave feedback for them?

Yes! You can view a student's work on a level and leave feedback for them in CS Discoveries and CS Principles courses. Students will be notified of feedback you've left them when the sign in to Code.org Learn more about leaving your students feedback on a level.

Want to learn more about assessing student work?

Check out these resources:

How do I leave feedback for my students? (CS Discoveries and CS Principles only)

Does Code.org notify students that they have new feedback from their teachers? (CS Discoveries and CS Principles only)

CSD Guide to Assessment

Why do my students’ bubbles turn green in CS Discoveries and CS Principles even if they don’t have the right answers?

Rubrics in Code.org courses

Please note: you must be a verified teacher to leave feedback for a student in your class. Feedback can only be left on programming levels in CS Discoveries and CS Principles courses.

You can leave feedback for your students on programming levels in CS Discoveries and CS Principles courses. Students will be notified of the feedback you've left when they login.

Leaving feedback for your students

To leave feedback for students, do the following:

Step 1: Go to the level you wish to leave feedback on, open the blue teacher panel, and then clickon the student’s name you want to leave feedback for.

Viewing student progress

Step 2: Click on the "Feedback" tab which is near the Instructions area of the level. You can use the Teacher Feedback box under the Feedback header to leave specific notes or feedback for each student.

On select CS Discoveries 2019-2020 skill-building levels, there are also digital rubrics in the Feedback tab that you can use to evaluate how well students have demonstrated mastery of key concepts.

Step 3: Once you've entered your notes, make sure to hit “save and share” to send the feedback to the student!

Tips & Tricks:

You can run the student’s code from the level view to evaluate its correctness. If you want to change the student's code to demonstrate something, use the "remix" version to copy their code, make your changes, and then use the "share" button to get a link to the changed project. You can share that in the teacher feedback box so the student can see (and run) your suggestions!

Programming levels also often include exemplar solutions for teachers to reference - look for these in the blue teacher panel.

You can use the black arrows to the left and right of the student's name in the blue teacher panel to move forward or backwards through the list of students in the section. This will be faster than scrolling through the list of students if you're trying to grade an entire section at once.

You can update your feedback for a student on a level as many times as you want, but students will only see the most recent feedback you've left.

Viewing the feedback you've left for students

You can download all the feedback you've left on a Unit for a specific class section as a CSV.

To download the CSV for a unit, do the following:

Step 1: Go to the Assessments and Surveys tab of the teacher dashboard and select the section you want to view feedback for.

Step 2: Select the unit you want to view feedback for from the first dropdown menu ("Select a course or unit"). Then choose “All teacher feedback in this unit” from the “Select an assessment or survey” dropdown menu.

Step 3: Click "Download CSV of Feedback" to get a csv of feedback you've left for that unit!

Can my students see the feedback I leave them?

Yes, students get notified about new feedback when the sign in! Check out this support article for more details.

Want to learn more about assessing student work?

Check out these resources:

Assessing and checking student understanding in CS Discoveries and CS Principles

Does Code.org notify students that they have new feedback from their teachers?

CSD Guide to Assessment

Why do my students’ bubbles turn green in CS Discoveries and CS Principles even if they don’t have the right answers?

Rubrics in Code.org courses

Yes, students get notified about new feedback when they sign in!

If you've left students feedback in CS Discoveries or CS Principles, they will see a banner telling them they have new feedback from their teacher when they log in to Code.org.This banner appears on Course and Unit Overview Pages, and on the Student Homepage, and it will be visible until students have viewed the feedback.

Viewing student progress

Students can click on the "View feedback" button in the banner to view the feedback on the Teacher Feedback page.

This page will contain all the feedback the student has received from their teacher.

New, unread feedback appears with a white background while older feedback has a grey background.

Students can see both free-form teacher feedback and mini-rubric evaluations (where relevant) from the teacher feedback page.

Students can click on the header of the feedback entry to view the full feedback on the level itself.

If students don’t have any new feedback but still want to revisit their older teacher feedback, they can do so from the Student Homepage (have students look for the "Review Feedback" box at the bottom of their "My Courses" section). They can also go directly to studio.code.org/feedback to view this page.

Want to learn more about assessing student work?

Check out these resources:

Assessing and checking student understanding in CS Discoveries and CS Principles

How do I leave feedback for my students?

CSD Guide to Assessment

Why do my students’ bubbles turn green in CS Discoveries and CS Principles even if they don’t have the right answers?

Rubrics in Code.org courses

Code.org’s CS Discoveries and CS Principles courses offer additional materials for Code.org teachers that have been verified as actual teachers. This document covers frequently asked questions about becoming a verified teacher.

What is a verified teacher and who should become one?

A verified teacher is someone who has either attended our Professional Development for our CS Discoveries or CS Principles courses or has been manually verified as an actual teacher. You will want to become a verified teacher if you are planning on teaching our CS Principles or CS Discoveries courses. By becoming verified, you will get access to answer keys, project exemplars, and locked lessons. Learn more about locked lessons here.

How do I become a verified teacher?

If you have gone through our Professional Development for CS Discoveries or CS Principles, you should already be a verified teacher. If you have not gone through our Professional Development, you can apply to become verified by filling out this form. Note that it may take up to 7 business days to become verified as this is a manual process, so we encourage you to fill out this form as soon as you can. You will receive an email once you are verified.

Can I teach the course even if I am not verified yet?

Yes! You should still be able to teach the CS Principles and CS Discoveries courses even if you are not a verified teacher. You just won’t be able to access some of the materials like our answer keys, or administer any locked surveys or assessments.

I already submitted my form for becoming verified so why am I not verified yet?

We try to process requests for teacher verification as fast as we can but because it is a manual process, it can take up to 7 business days to complete. If it has been longer than 7 business days, please email us at [email protected] so we can figure out what might be going on.

Can students become verified teachers?

No. The goal of having verifying teachers is making sure only users who are truly teachers have access to teacher-only content like answer keys and locked lessons.

We have two options for printing certificates!

If you are seeking to print generic certificates stating that students have completed an Hour of Code, go to http://code.org/certificates.

If you are seeking to print certificates of completion for a specific course, the 'print certificates' button found in your teacher dashboard 's list of sectionswill generate certificates for all students in that section (each of which you can remove individually if you'd like), stating the assigned course as completed.

Just click the down-facing arrow to the far right of each section to bring up an option for certificates:

https://code.org/images/MC_Hour_Of_Code_Certificate.jpg

We also have a few resources for blank certificates you can customize yourself:

General blank certificate: https://code.org/images/blank_certificate.png

20 hour course certificate: https://code.org/images/20hours_certificate.jpg

Hour of Code: https://code.org/images/hour_of_code_certificate.jpg

Minecraft Hour of Code:

This article goes over frequently asked questions around how to remove / archive / delete classroom sections from your section list. If you do not know what sections are, check out this article.

NOTE: We strongly encourage you to not delete sections where students sign in with word or picture passwords.If you delete a section like this, students will no longer be able to access their accounts unless they created a personal login first. Read more about how students can create a personal login.

How can I archive or remove sections I no longer use from my sections list?

If you have a section that you no longer use, you can hide it by choosing the "Archive Section" option from the dropdown associated with the given section from your sections table.

Click the dropdown:

here

Choose "Archive Section":

This will remove the section from your main sections list and add it to your "Archived Sections" list.

Can I view and access my archived sections?

Yes, you can still view and access your archived sections. To do this, click on thebutton underneath your main sections list that says "View archived sections":

Note that this button will only appear if you have any archived sections.Clicking on this button will reveal all your archived sections.

You can hide your archived sections again by clicking on "Hide archived sections." The archived sections will also behidden the next time you load the page, even if you do not click this button.

I accidentally archived a section. Can I add it back to my list again?

Yes. To do this, click on the "View archived sections" button below your main sections list. This should reveal all of your hidden sections. Click on the "restore Section" option from the dropdown menu in the right-most column to add the section back to your main sections list.

Can I move students out of archived sections?

Yes, but you must first unarchive the section. Follow the instructions above to unarchive the section first, then move students out of the section. Once you've finished moving the students, you can re-archive the section.

Can my students still sign into sections that are archived?

Yes, students will still be able to sign into a section even if it is archived. The main goal for archiving sections is to help reduce your list of sections to the set you want to focus on.

Why is it so hard to fully delete a section?

We discourage deleting sections for two reasons:

If you use a word or picture password section, any student who hasn't created a personal login will no longer be able to access their account if the section were to be deleted.

The only way we know that a student is part of a school is if they are in a teacher's section. If the student is no longer in a section (because they were removed from the section or the section were deleted), we would need to treat the account as one that is not managed by a teacher, thereby releasing the education records to the student. By keeping the sections as archived sections, you can keep the section out of view while still retaining the education records for the school.

Is there a way to fully delete a section?

You can only delete a section with 0 students. You can remove students from a sectionin one of two ways:

Go inside the section you want to delete and click on the "Manage students" tab. From there, individually remove each student...OR

Use the "Move students" feature to mass-move all of your students into another section.

If there are 0 students in your section, you should see a "Delete section" option in the dropdown menu in the right-most column:

Note:The option to remove students or move students does not exist for sections linked toGoogle Classroom or Clever. If you want to remove students from these sections, you will need to remove them from Google Classroom or Clever directly and sync using the sync button in the "Manage students" tab. Learn more about using Google Classroom and Clever .

If you have a teacher account, you should be able to see the answers to each puzzle using the "See asolution" button to the right when you're signed in. Click on that blue arrow to bring up the Teacher Panel with that button. When you're done, you can click that button again to stop viewingthe solution.

https://docs.google.com/a/code.org/forms/d/1f5QPKi3F_3nBDR8q9BcXCqixzY7SCQd7Seob0-JYizU/

Note that certain Hour of Code activities won't include this solution button. If you don't see this link on each puzzle, it's possible you originally signed up with a student account instead of a teacher account. You can email us at [email protected] to have your account changed to a teacher type!

The middle school and high school courses, CS Discoveries and CS Principles, have their own set of solutions and additional materials only for teachers. You can apply to have your account verified for access to teacher-only materials through this form:

As this is a highly requested feature, we're working on updates to allow for teachers to co-manage sections, butat this time we don't allow merging of accounts or sharing of sections between more than one teacher account. We would recommend just changing the credentials of oneteacher account overseeing all students to something that is easily shared among many parties.

That being said, note that students can be joined to infinitely many sections at once. If you have a co-teacher that you want to also be able to view student progress for, just have that co-teacher make their own section, then have all students join their section as well (while remaining in your section). You as the teacher can also copy students into other sections - see the guide on moving students for this process. Through either of these methods, both you and the co-teacher will be able to see all student progress, in any course.

Students can choose teammates from a list of other students in your section when working together (pair programming) on Code.org. Teachers can track both team progress and individual student progress.

To turn on pair programming for a section of yours:

visit your list of sections on your homepage (studio.code.org/home)

click the down-facing arrow to the far right of a section you want to add pair programming in

choose 'edit section details'

on the next screen, you'll see an on/off option for pair programming

We published a blog post with more background and a brief walkthrough (via pictures and animated .gifs) on pair programming here:

http://teacherblog.code.org/post/147349807334/try-pair-programmingtrack-the-progress-of

Students will need to be in the same section for them to select partners for pair programming. All sections (regardless of its assigned course) by default support pair programming - either word/picture-based, or email-based.

Note that any pairing of students is not permanent by any means. Students will be un-paired upon signing out of Code.org every time, and can choose different partners upon signing in again.

For word- or picture-based sections, students will see a checkbox option upon first visiting their section's join page (studio.code.org/sections/ABCDEF for example). studio.code.org/home

For email-based sections, students can find an option for selecting a partner upon clicking their name in the top-right corner where it reads "Hi [your name]", and selecting 'pair programming.'

A student that selects other partners will be labeled as the 'logged in' person within your 'view progress' page when reviewing their progress, while other partnered students will read as 'partner'. Any progress made by the logged in person (as in, green bubbles of progress indicated completed puzzles) will reflect upon the partners' sides as well.

Disabling Pair Programming

Teachers can disable pair programming for any section of theirs, by clicking 'edit' on the far right side of your list of sections (on your teacher homepage, at ), to bring up a window for changing settings for that section.

Viewing Partner's Progress

Partnered students can also view the solution made by the logged in student. Partners will see a yellow box upon first visiting a puzzle that was completed by their logged in partner, showing an option for viewing the solution they made as a team.

To get started using Code.org in your classroom or at home with your students, we'd recommend familiarizing yourself with all of our courses and their suggested age ranges for students at studio.code.org/courses, and accompanying curriculum from grades K-12 at curriculum.code.org or code.org/educate. You can also set up a teacher account to create a class section for your students, to track their progress as they work through courses.

First you'll need to create a teacher account at studio.code.org/users/sign_up, then create a section from your teacher dashboard for your students to join. You can set up class sections to allow for students to join either with or without their own email/password-based Code Studio accounts.

Once setting up a teacher account, start with this series of start-up articles for first time teachers on Code.org on finding the best course for your students, creating a class section, and adding student accounts to your section.

Once you've set up a class section, your students can join it either with their own accounts or ones you create for them - this article will walk you through that process! If you haven't made a section yet, check out our article on how to create a class section.

The way you add students to your section will depend on which login type you are using for the section. If you are syncing your section with Google Classroom or Clever, please refer to this article instead.

Picture or word login types

Adding students

If you are using picture or word logins for your section, click on “Add students” from your sections table:

Click here to view this article in Spanish.

This will take you to a page that looks like this:

To quickly add multiple students, click on the “Add multiple students” button. Here, you will be able to type in each student, one per line.

Once you’re done, hit the “Done” button and fill in the gender and age for all of your students. Once you press “Save all,” you should get something like this:

You can always go back to this page by clicking into the section, and clicking on the “Manage students” tab:

Helping students sign in

Each student name you enter will have a randomly assigned secret picture (if you chose picture login) or a pair of secret words (if you chose word login) as their password. At the bottom of the “Manage students” tab for your given section, you will see an option for printing out individual login cards for your students that include their names and secret picture or words:

Each login card will look something like this:

To sign in, ask your students to do the following:

Go to Code.org.

Click on the “Sign in” button on the top right.

Enter in their 6 letter section code on the top right of the page. The option will look something like this:

Hit “Go.” This should take them to a login page that looks like this:

Choose their name. Once they choose their name, they will see an option to choose their secret picture or type in their secret words. Once they’ve done this, they should be able to click on the “Sign in” button to sign in.

Email login type

If you are using the email login type, your students will need to sign into their existing accounts. If they do not already have an account, they will need to create their own accounts by going to https://studio.code.org/users/sign_up.

Note: If your students have a Google, Facebook, or Microsoft account, we encourage them to sign in through one of these options listed on the right side of both the sign in and sign up pages:

Once your student has signed in, they can visit code.org/join and enter the 6-letter section code of the section you created. You can find the 6-letter section code at the bottom of your “Manage students” tab or in the section code column on your list of sections.

Latest Updates

We recently released our latest 2019-2020 versions of our Computer Science Fundamentals, Computer Science Discoveries and Computer Science Principles curriculum offerings! You can read more details about each updated offering through these links:

CS Fundamentals 2019-20

CS Discoveries 2019-20

CS Principles 2019-20

You can read more about individual improvements and new features in tools like App Lab and Game Lab in our ongoing product update blog series, here ! Some of our favorite updates include:

We added dubbed videos in Latin American Spanish! Dubbed videos provided by our Chilean partner Kodea are now live for Courses A-D. Users that selected “Espanol - Latin America” from the language selector dropdown are automatically shown the dubbed version of the video.

Updates to App Lab, Game Lab, and Sprite Lab:

We now support font customization and themes in App Lab!

Sprite Lab is silent no more, with a new sound block. We built a “play sound” block and hooked it up to the Game Lab sound library. And we added 1300 new sound effects to our library!

Sprite Lab now also has an expanded sprite library and an ability to draw your own sprites

More helpful error messages across all Lab environments

We now offer the option for teachers to leave feedback for their students, and students will receive a notification when they have new feedback! Check this article for more details. And CS Discoveries classrooms also have a digital mini-rubric along with the feedback text box that they can use.

Frequently Asked Questions

Below are answers to the most frequently asked questions both for teachers starting out new with Code.org and for those returning to the learning platform at the start of the school year.

Managing classroom sections

How can I create a classroom section for my students?

Create a new classroom section for your students by signing into your account and clicking on the button that says “Create a section” on your dashboard. If you use Google Classroom or Clever rostering, we encourage you to choose the option to sync your section with these tools. Otherwise, choose the “personal login” option if your students can create their own accounts, or word or picture login accounts if you want to create accounts for your students. Learn more about creating sections here and having your students join your sections here.

How do I delete my old sections?

The easiest way to declutter your sections list is by choosing the “Archive section” option in the dropdown menu that appears when you click on the arrow on the rightmost column of your sections table.

By archiving your sections (instead of deleting them), you will be able to restore them in the future if needed while still retaining your students’ education records. Learn more about removing old sections here.

Can I move a student from one section to another?

Yes, you can move (or copy over) students by clicking into the section from your dashboard, going to the “Manage Students” tab and clicking on the “Move Students” button. From here, choose the students you want to move and the section you want to move them to. Note that this does not work for sections synced with a third party system like Google Classroom or Clever.

To move a student in sections synced with a third party system like Google Classroom or Clever, you'll need to move the student between sections in the third party system first, and then return to Code.org and "sync" both the old and new section to update them.

For more details on moving students, go here.

Can I add a co-teacher to my section?

There is currently no way to add a co-teacher to your section. The best solution is to have two teachers create their own sections with the same set of students. If you use Google Classroom or Clever rostering, this can be achieved by syncing to the same Google Classroom or Clever section. Otherwise, a teacher can copy over their students to another teacher’s sections through the “Move Students” button.

Finding and assigning a course

How should I find the course I want to teach?

Visit our courses page to learn more about the courses we offer and what the recommended grade bands are for these courses.

What is the purpose of assigning a course or unit to my section?

By assigning a specific course to your section, you can make sure that your students go directly to the desired course after they sign in. It will also default you to the right course when you’re viewing student progress in your teacher dashboard. You can assign a course when you create a new section or use the orange “Assign course” button when viewing the course overview page. Note that you can also assign a specific unit for the same purpose when teaching CS Discoveries or CS Principles.

Viewing student progress

How can I see my students’ overall progress?

You can view your students’ progress through the “Progress” tab for the section. Go to “My dashboard,” click the name of the section you’re interested in viewing, and make sure you’re on the “Progress” tab. Click on the magnifying glass to see the progress in more detail (on a level by level basis). Learn more here.

How can I see the work my students did on a particular level?

To view your students’ work, first go to the specific level you are interested in. You should see a blue teacher panel on the right-hand side. Open up the panel, choose the section you want, and a list of students in that section should appear. From here, click on the individual students and see their progress.

How do I give feedback to my students?

If you're a verified teacher, you can leave feedback for your students on individual programming levels in our CS Discoveries and CS Principles courses. In CS Discoveries '19-'20 there are also mini-rubrics available on select programming levels.We recommend leaving feedback on levels marked as assessment opportunities ( [email protected] ).

To give feedback, go to the level you want to leave feedback on, click a student's name in the blue teacher panel, and enter your feedback for that student in the "Feedback" tab (near the instructions area). Learn more here.

Can my students see feedback I leave them?

Yes; when students sign in, they will see a banner notifying them of new teacher feedback. They can click on the banner to see their teacher feedback. Learn more here.

Teacher controls for student settings

Can I control what lessons my students see?

Yes, you can do this by hiding and showing exactly what lessons you want your students to see. Go into the overview page for the course or unit (e.g. https://studio.code.org/s/coursea-2018 or https://studio.code.org/s/csp1-2018 ) and select the appropriate section from the dropdown at the top of the page. Then use the toggle for “Visible” and “Hidden" to turn off lessons or units you don't want your students to have access to. Learn more here.

How do my students pair program and how can I stop them from pairing?

Your students can pair program by clicking on the “Pair Programming” option from their accounts drop down menu. From here, they can choose whichever students they want to pair with. You can turn off pair programming (and unpair any existing pairings) by editing the section details for the appropriate section and selecting “No” for “Enable pair programming.” Learn more about pair programming here.

Can I control whether students can share their projects with others?

Teachers can manage whether their students can share App Lab, Game Lab, and Web Lab projects with others through the "Manage students" tab for the given section. Teachers will see a column to edit share settings for students by default if they have CS Discoveries or CS Principles assigned to the given section, as App Lab, Game Lab, and Web Lab are designed to be used in our middle and high school courses. Learn more about controlling share settings for your students here.

Preparing for your computer science class

What are the technical requirements for using Code.org curriculum?

Please review our IT requirements with your IT administrator to ensure that your classroom is ready and set up to use our online curriculum.

How do I attend professional learning for Code.org curriculum?

Professional learning is available to teachers of all grade levels. Whether you’re new to computer science or an experienced tech teacher, our professional learning program is a great way to find support as you’re preparing to use Code.org’s curriculum.

Do you have any videos, posters, or other resources I can use?

Check out this guide for recruiting students for your computer science class

Invite a software engineer to speak to your students

Explore examples of careers in tech

Print out posters to inspire your students

Show a video from our video library

Do you use a OneNote Notebook with your class? Check out the OneNote Notebook for CS Discoveries

What else can I do to help?

How else can I help expand computer science?

Help us expand computer science at your school or district by first letting us know if your school teaches computer science. Tell us about your school here.

Additional resources

How can I connect with other teachers or get coding help for myself or my students?

Visit our community forum at forum.code.org to connect with other educators around the world, to get varied input on classroom implementation strategies, hear success stories, ask questions over your code or your students' code, and much more! More specifically, for debugging help in GameLab or CS Discoveries, go here. For debugging help in AppLab or CS Principles, go here.

How can I keep track of product updates that are happening?

Check out these articles in our Product Update blog series that cover our latest updates and features.

What if I need additional help?

We encourage you to check out our support articles to see if your question is already answered. If you run into any other problems or issues, please email us at . We are always happy to help!

If you're experiencing issues with Code.org puzzles or accounts, email us at [email protected] ! If you can give us as many details as possible in your initial bug report, we can get back to you sooner with a resolution. For example, if you're seeing a potential bug on a puzzle, please specify which course - stage - puzzle(s) this is occurring for, and the email address associated with your account (if any), or the students' usernames who are seeing issues with the site. For certain issues, we may also ask you to provide screenshots of what code blocks you're using, or provide screenshots of the Javascript console.

How to access the Javascript console

Modern web browsers provide a Javascript console that allows developers to see errors or warnings that are occurring behind-the-scenes on a webpage, which are useful for troubleshooting bugs. You can use keyboard combinations listed below to open the console panel, shown here in a screenshot from a puzzle:

In Chrome:press Ctrl + Shift + J on a Windows computer (or Chromebook), or Cmd (command) + Shift + C on a Mac.

In Safari:press Cmd + Opt (option) + C.

In Firefox:press Ctrl + Shift + J on a Windows computer, or Cmd + Shift + J on a Mac.

In Internet Explorer:press F12, then click the 'console' tab.

If the keyboard commands don't work for you to open the console, try clicking on the 3 stacked dots in the top right corner of a Chrome window:

Then click on "More Tools" -> "Developer Tools":

How to take screenshots

On a Mac:

Press command + shift + 3 for a full screenshot of your entire display

Press command + shift + 4 to take a partial screenshot

Screenshots will be saved to your desktop

On a Windows computer:

Press the PrtScn key on your keyboard to save a screenshot to your clipboard, which can be pasted into a document for saving.

Windows 10 computers will come default the Snipping tool installed. This tool can be used to take partial screenshots.

On a Chromebook:

Press Ctrl + F5, or Ctrl + this key:

The screenshot will pop up as a notification, and there's a "Copy to clipboard" button in this notification, which you can paste into a document or email for sharing.

*Please note*Students cannot currently be moved out of archived sections. To work around this, please unarchive the section first, then move students out of the section according to the instructions below.

To move students between your sections or to a section belonging to another teacher, follow these steps:

1.Log into your teacher account

2. Click "My Dashboard" at the top left

3. Choose the section that contains the student(s) you'd like to move. Click the name of the section of which you'd like to move students from.

4. At the top right, click the "Movestudents" button

5. In the table to the left, select the students you'd like to move. If you want to move all students in this section, click the checkbox at the very top left.

6.Next, select the section you'd like to move them to.You can choose to move students to one ofyour other sections or move to a section belonging to another teacher. To move to another teacher's section, you'll need their section code.

7. If you want to move your studentsto a new section, you'll have to create this new section first before you can move your students. To create a new section, click "Sections" again like in Step 2 and click "New section" at the top left of your sections table.

8. For the Yes/No question, select YES if you want both you and the other teacher to continue to see the student(s) progress together. That means the student willstill belong in your current section AND in the other teacher's section. If you want to move the student so they only belong to the new teacher and not be inyour section anymore, select NO.

9. Finally, click "Move students."

How can I move students in sections synced with Google Classroom or Clever?

You'll need to first move your students to the new section(s) within the Google Classroom side, and then you can re-sync your sections on the Code.org side to see the moves reflected there. The 'sync' button should be available in the Manage Students tab for any section that connects to Google Classroom or Clever, which will update any changes to the roster.

All of our materials are free to use under Creative Commons license for non-commercial purposes. As long as you aren't representing our curriculum as your own or trying to sell it, you are welcome to use our materials to teach students so long as there's no cost to the student. If you are charging a fee to compensate for your own time or overhead fees like venue space or insurance, that's fine.

Please see our Terms of Service for more details.

Thank you for bringing computer science education to your country! Did you know that 50\% of all teacher accounts on Code.org belong to teachers outside of the US?

- We welcome all teachers to start teaching right away using our curriculum, lesson plans, tools, and support, which are always available to you and your students at no cost. You can also join our forums for teachers of all grade levels to connect with other teachers for support, teaching tips, and best practices.

- If you are a primary school teacher interested in teaching our CS Fundamentals course, check out our free, self-paced online workshop to get started.

- There may be an organization in your country that provides professional learning experiences for computer science teachers. Start by checking this list of our international partners. Don't see anyone from your country on the list? Reach out to us at [email protected] for further ideas.

- At this point, we do not have the resources to open attendance at our 5-day summer training workshops (for CS Discoveries and CS Principles teachers) to teachers outside of the US. This is because ongoing support throughout the school year is an important aspect of our professional learning programs, and we are currently unable to provide this level of support to teachers abroad.

- Don't give up on us yet, though! As we grow our International Program, we are thinking about how best to make engaging and productive professional learning experiences available to non-US teachers. If you are interested in receiving more information in the future about Code.org's international program offerings, please fill out this form.

If you have any further questions or suggestions, please reach out to us directly at [email protected].

No - a given section can only be assigned one course.

However, note that the course assigned to a section is just the first one that students will see when they log in - they can continue to access any other course at any time by visiting studio.code.org once logged in.

You can change the course you're viewing progress in in your 'view progress' tab by changing the dropdown list at the top to any other course, to see how your students are doing in courses other than the one assigned.

Under the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act ( FERPA ), "education records" are records maintained by schools or education agencies about current and former students. When students do work in the context of a school, that work is considered part of their education record. Schools, not students, have a right to students' education records and are the ones that have the authority to modify and delete education records.

If a student on Code.org is inside a teacher's section, we view their work on Code.org courses as part of their education records. That's why students do not have the ability to delete their own account if they are in a teacher's section - they don't have control over their data, their school does. If a student is no longer part of a teacher's section, we have no way of knowing that they are using the service in the context of a school. So when a teacher removes their student from their section, they are effectively "releasing" the education records to the student as now the student will have full control over their account (including the ability to delete their account).

If a teacher deletes their own account, we pop up a dialog to let help them understand and confirm that this will also delete or release their students’ records. If they choose to continue, then any of their students (who do not have a personal login) will also be deleted. This means their students’ education records will also get deleted, which might not be something the school intends to do. If a student does have a personal login, then the student account will not be deleted but the student will end up getting full control of their account as they will no longer be inside a teacher's section.

It is okay to release or delete the education records of your students as long as your school no longer has a need for them. If you are simply removing your students in order to delete sections and clean up your list, we recommend archiving your sections instead, which you can do without removing your students.

You can use the teacher dashboard to view progress for students in your class sections.

What is the teacher dashboard?

The Teacher Dashboard contains a variety of tools for checking on and evaluating student work, as well as managing the students in a particular section.

Click here to view this article in Spanish.

You can find the teacher dashboard by going to the teacher homepage ( https://studio.code.org/home ) and then clicking on a section name from the “Classroom Sections” table.

Once you’re on the teacher dashboard, you can switch between sections using the section toggle above the purple bar.

How can I see an overview of my class’ progress?

From the Teacher Dashboard, tap the “Progress” tab in the purple bar to view student progress in the current section. The progress tab shows how individual students are progressing through a Unit or Course (in this case, CS Discoveries, Unit 3).

You can view student progress for entire lessons:

Or zoom in to look at student progress on individual levels:

To change the granularity of the view between lessons and levels, use the magnifying glass icons next to the “Select a course or unit” dropdown menu.

The type of each level is denoted in the bar at the top of the progress table:

You can use the key at the bottom of the page to learn what a particular level type means:

You can also click on a student's name in the progress view to see a more detailed view for their progress in a given course, down to each level (each indicated by a colored bubble).

What do all the shapes and colors on the progress tab mean?

Solid green or solid purple shapes ( and ) mean a student believes they’ve completed a particular level or lesson.

Note: In some CS Fundamentals lessons, certain levels are auto-validated for correctness, but in all CS Discoveries and CS Principles lessons, levels are not auto-validated for correctness ( why? ). We recommend reviewing “assessment opportunity” levels (purple bubbles) in these courses to determine whether or not students understand the key concepts of a lesson. Learn more about evaluating student learning in CS Discoveries and CS Principles.

Light green levels (CS Fundamentals only) () mean that students have completed a level, but that they are using more lines of code to solve the problem than is necessary.

Partially filled in squares () mean the student has not completed all levels in this lesson.

Note: You can use the zoom in icon to see which levels students have or haven’t completed within a lesson.

Shapes that aren’t filled in () mean the student has not attempted a particular level or lesson yet.

Diamond levels () introduce concepts to students whereas circle levels () offer activities for students to practice the concept or demonstrate what they’ve learned.

Viewing progress on individual levels

If you want to check a student’s code or response on a particular level, you can view the student’s work on that level by clicking on a particular bubble. Once you’re viewing a level, click the blue arrow on the right side to bring up the teacher panel, where you'll see dropdown options for selecting a section and a list for selecting students within that section.

Choose a student from the list to see their submitted work for that puzzle.

Choose "me" to see your work on that puzzle.

You can also leave feedback for students on most programming levels in CS Discoveries and CS Principles ( learn more ).

How else can I monitor student progress and learning using the teacher dashboard?

The teacher dashboard also collects your students’ Text Responses (CSD and CSP-only), Assessments and Surveys responses (CSD and CSP-only), and Projects and brings them to you all in one place.

“Projects” tab

Any standalone projects that your students are working on independent of Code.org courses will be shown under the Projects tab on the teacher dashboard. This view makes it easy to review or monitor any projects you may have assigned to your students.

NOTE: projects that are integrated parts of Code.org courses will not appear here; to check those projects, go to that project’s particular lesson or level via the “Progress” tab.

“Text responses” tab (CS Discoveries, CS Principles only)

Text responses are gathered from short answer questions throughout the course. Once a student has answered one of these questions, their response will appear here. You can download all student responses as a CSV, and filter down responses to a particular course, unit, and lesson.

“Assessments / Surveys” tab (CS Discoveries, CS Principles only)

Student responses for lockable assessments are aggregated under the Assessments / Surveys tab on the teacher dashboard. Any survey responses from students in your section will appear under this tab as well.

Note: Lockable assessments are in CS Principles and CS Discoveries courses today.

Note: most surveys are anonymous which means at least 5 students will need to respond before you can see aggregated, anonymous results for a section.

From this tab, you can select a specific section, unit, and assessment or survey to view results for. You can also download a CSV of student responses. You can learn more about administering surveys or assessments here.

Want to learn more about assessing student work?

Check out these resources:

CSD Guide to Assessment

Assessing student progress and learning in CS Discoveries and CS Principles

Why do my students’ bubbles turn green in CS Discoveries and CS Principles even if they don’t have the right answers?

Rubrics in Code.org courses

There are 2 primary categories of programming languages: text-based programming languages and visual programming languages. Languages like Javascript or Python are text-based, but Code.org's elementary school-level courses use Blockly, which uses visual blocks that you drag and drop to write programs. It’s easier to learn programming using a visual language versus a text-based language because when you’re learning to program, you’re up against 2 things: learning the logic of how to write programs and also the syntax of writing programs.

In both visual and text-based programming, you’re learning the logic of writing programs like how to repeat instructions or how to make the computer decide between 2 instructions. Syntax is the set of rules of how to combine instructions so the computer can understand them. In visual programming languages, you have a menu of available instructions, which you can drag around and place next to other instructions and then you’re good to go. In text-based programming languages, you have to remember what the instructions are called, and be very precise in what you type like where to put a semi-colon or remembering to include an exclamation point. By starting to learn with a visual programming language, you can focus on the logic without worrying about if you remembered to put a closed parenthesis or not. Then, once you’ve got the logic of programming down, you can choose to move on to a text-based programming language, which can be more powerful and efficient than visual languages if you’re experienced with text-based programming.

This learning progression is kind of like learning to crawl and getting good at that before you learn to walk. But by no means is learning to program with a visual language a cop out, it’s even how many major universities, like Harvard and Berkeley, teach coding in their Intro to Computer Science classes.

What does the OneNote Notebook contain?

The OneNote Notebook contains the following:

Activity guides and classroom resources from CS Discoveries

Lesson briefs from CS Discoveries

Sections where students and teachers can collaborate with one another

Private work sections for teachers and students

Journal prompts for most CS Discoveries lessons (in the 2019-2020 version)

short survey

What courses does the OneNote Notebook support?

The notebook supports the 2019-2020 version of CS Discoveries.The notebook does not support our CS Fundamentals or CS Principles courses.

Do I need a special account to use the notebook?

Yes, you'll need a Microsoft Teacher account to create a notebook. Sign up for a free one here.

How do I create a notebook?

Once you have a Microsoft Teacher account, go to this site and follow the prompts to create a new notebook.

Stuck? Take a look at these step-by-step instructions from Microsoft.

Something isn't working and I need help - where should I go?

If some part of the notebook isn't working like you'd expect or you need help getting set up, please file a support ticket with Microsoft.

You can also check out Microsoft's help article about the OneNote Notebook.

I want to give feedback about the notebook - where should I go?

We'd love to hear your thoughts about the notebook! Please fill out this to tell us what you think.

While we don't have our own mute button built into puzzles, we'd suggest muting sounds on individual student devices if you want your classroom to remain on the quieter side! Also, Google Chrome allows individual muting of browser tabs if you right-click on the tab at the top of your browser window.

Note: if you are having trouble with Google Classroom syncing, try logging out completely of both Code.org and your Google account, then start the process over again in a fresh browser session.

Step 1: Sign in with your Google or Clever account

You will need to make sure you sign into your Code.org account through Google or Clever before you can sync with these providers.

To sign in with your Google Account, click on the “Sign in with Google account” option from the sign in page :

[email protected]

Note:If you currently sign in with an email and password, as long as the email address of your Google Account matches the email address for your Code.org account, you will be able to sign in with the Google Account option. If the emails do not match, you can go into your account settings and update your email address from there so it matches the email address of your Google Account. Then, sign back out and "Sign in with Google Account."

To sign in with your Clever account, go to your Clever dashboard and click on the Code.org logo:

Note: We are actively working on allowing users to connect their Clever account with an existing Code.org account in case you were using an account with Clever before but now want to use the Clever integration.

Step 2: Create a new section

Go to “ My Dashboard ” and click on the option to create a new section. This should pop up a dialog with an option to sync with either Google Classroom or Clever, depending on which provider you are using:

Step 3: [First-time only, for Google Classroom] Authorize Code.org to use Google Classroom

The first time you try syncing a section with Google Classroom, you will need to authorize Code.org to use Google Classroom. Click the link that says “Click here to authorize Google Classroom.”

You should get something like this:

Make sure you choose the email address that matches with the Google Account you are logged in with!

Hit “Allow” on the next dialog.

Step 4: Choose the section you want to import

Step 5: Fill out section details

Once you choose a section, you should see the dialog that lets you fill in your section details.

Step 6: Hit “Save” to finish creating your section

Once you hit “Save” in the section details dialog, you’ll have finished creating your section with Google Classroom or Clever!

FAQ & Troubleshooting Tips

How do I re-sync my list of students?

If your Google Classroom or Clever roster gets updated, you can sync your list of students in Code.org by going to your Code.org section, clicking on the “Manage students” tab, and hitting the button to “Sync students from Google Classroom” or “Sync students from Clever.”

How can I move students in sections synced with Google Classroom or Clever?

You'll need to first move your students to the new section(s) within the Google Classroom side, and then you can re-sync your sections on the Code.org side to see the moves reflected there. The 'sync' button should be available in the Manage Students tab for any section that connects to Google Classroom or Clever, which will update any changes to the roster.

How should my students be signing in?

If your students are using Google Classroom, they should go to the Code.org sign in page and click on the option to “Sign in with Google Account" on the right side (not by typing their credentials on the left).

If your students are using Clever, they should go to their Clever dashboard and click the Code.org logo.

What if I sign into my Code.org account with an email address and password, instead of my Google or Clever account?

You can link your Code.org account to your Google or Clever login through your account settings page. Just follow the instructions here.

What if I created a section without Google Classroom or Clever and now want tosync my section with one of these tools?

The best way to deal with this situation is to create a new section from scratch using the instructions outlined in this article. As long as your students were already signing in with their Google Accounts or Clever Accounts, they will get to keep using the same Code.org account in your new section. Therefore, their progress should not be lost.

If your students are not already logging in with their Google or Clever accounts, then the same response to theearlier Q&A ("What if I sign into my Code.org account with an email address...") applies.

I keep getting an error while trying to create a new section or sync an existing one. What do I do?

Most likely, your overall authentication from Google Classroom or Clever has expired, which happens often. Log out and back in to Code.org through the the "Sign in with Google" link for Google Classroom, and the Clever portal for Clever.

How can my school or district admins set up admin accounts with Code.org or Clever / Google Classroom?

We do not currently support admin-level accounts on Code.org or through integrations with any sign on service. We'd recommend admins create teacher accounts to have all possible permissions for viewing student progress.

If you have any questions, contact us at

Teachers using Code.org's courses can use the "Visible / Hidden" feature to choose which units and lessons their students can see and access. This feature can be used for a variety of reasons:

Keep students from rushing ahead: if you wantyour students to not work past a certain lesson or unit, you can hide all the lessons or units that you don't want them to see yet. When it’s time to work on a lessonyou’ve hidden, you can just switch the toggle back to “visible” again.

Make the course feel less overwhelming for students: hide all the units or lessons the class isn't working on yet to make the course feel more approachable. Unhide units or lessons one-at-a-time when the class reaches that point in the course.

Shorten a course: Have limited time to teach computer science? You can hide lessons or units you know you don't want to cover so your students don't see them.

Read on to learn how to hide and show lessons and units.

How do I hide and show lessons?

To hide (or unhide) a lesson, first go to the course overview page (in CS Fundamentals) or the unit overview page (in CS Discoveries and CS Principles) for the course you want to adjust.

Step 1 - pick the section you want to adjust lessons for from the "Select Section" dropdown to reveal the "hidden / visible" toggles on the lessons:

CS Discoveries

Step 2: Click on “Hidden” to hide a lessonfrom students and “Visible” to show it again. You’ll still be able to access the puzzles, but your students will not see them.

Visible lesson:

Hidden lesson:

How do I hide and showfull units? (CS Discoveries and CS Principles only)

To hide a unit, first go to the course overview page for CS Principles or CS Discoveries.

Step 1 - pick the section you want to adjust units for from the "Select Section" dropdown to reveal the "hidden / visible" toggles on the units:

Step 2: Click on “Hidden” to hide a unit from students and “Visible” to show it again. You’ll still be able to access the unit, but your students will not see it.

Visible unit:

Hidden unit:

Why don’t I see the hidden / visible toggles for the lessons / units?

There are a couple reasons you might not be seeing the toggles:

The course you’re using doesn’t currently support hiding and showing lessons. Currently only CS Fundamentals courses, CS Principles units, and CS Discoveries units support the feature.

You need to make sure a section is selected from the section dropdownbefore the toggles are shown.

Why can’t some of my students see some of the units or lessons? I don’t have anything hidden.

Check this: It is possible that your students are also enrolled in another teacher’s section who has hidden those units or lessons. If you assign the given course to your class via the teacher dashboard, you can ensure that any units and lessonsyou have set as visible in the course are also visible to your students.

Why can some of my students still see the units or lessonsI tried to hide?

Check this first: Make sure your students have a student account and are enrolled in your section. No units or lessonswill get hidden for a teacher account or for a student account without a teacher.

Check this next: Are these students enrolled in another teacher's section? If a student is enrolled in another teacher’s section and that teacher has assigned the same course to your students, they may be overriding your hidden / visible settings. If you know the teacher (in the case of co-teaching for example), make sure the other teacher hides the same units and lessonsas what you want to hide. Otherwise, there is no good way around this without the other teacher un-assigning the given course or the student dropping out of the other teacher’s section.

I assigned a unit to my students but when they try to go to that unit, they cannot see it. Why?

Check this first: We have generally seen this happen because teachers have hidden the unit on the course overview page even though they have the lessons visible on the unit overview page. To check if this is what's happening, do the following

Step 1: Go to the course overview page for CS Principles or .

Step 2: Make sure you select the right section from the "Select section" dropdown:

Step 3: Once you select the section, you will be able to see all the units that are hidden and visible for that section. Make sure the assigned unit is set to visible.

Check this next: If some of your students are still not seeing the unit, double check that they are not in another classroom section. You can do this by asking them to go to sign into their account and scroll to the bottom of their dashboard. Underneath "Classroom sections," they should be able to see all the sections they are a part of.

Latest update for July 2018 regarding playing videos

Hardware

We recommend at least a 15 MBit/sec Internet connection for your school.

The smallest screen size we support is 1024x728 px.

You will need a desktop or laptop computer with a mouse (or touchpad) and keyboard for our grade 6-12 level courses: Computer Science Principles and Computer Science Discoveries (CSP and CSD).

All other content, such as K-5 courses (Computer Science Fundamentals) and Hour of Code activities are compatible on iPads and Chromebooks, in addition to all other modern laptop or desktop computers.

Supported Browsers and Platforms

Code.org takes atiered approach to the level of support we provide for different browsers and platforms to ensure we are building a stellar experience for most of our users, and an acceptable experience for the rest.Wesupport the following combinations of operating systems and browsers:

Browser

Operating System

Chrome33.x and higher

XP & Windows 7 and higher

Mac OS 10.6 and higher

Android 4.1.2 and higher

ChromeOS (Chromebooks)

Safari7.0.x and higher

Mac OS 10.6 and higher

iOS 7.x and higher

Internet Explorer 11 and higher

Windows 7 and higher

Mac OS 10.6 and higher

Microsoft Edge

Windows 10 and higher

Firefox25.x and higher

Windows 7 and higher

All CS Principles and CS Discoveries courses are not compatible with tablets or mobile devices. A full keyboard and mouse (or touchpad, like on Macbooks) on a normal desktop or laptop computer are required for these courses. Chromebooks are also compatible. iPads or other tablets are not compatible with CS Principles, CS Discoveries, or any Web Lab / App Lab / Game Lab environments.

Sites to Unblock

For the very best experience with all Code.org content, we recommend consulting with your school or district's IT department to ensure the following sites are allowed and aren't blocked.

Priority

URL

Required

https://code.org

https://*.code.org

Optional

https://cdn.optimizely.com

https://www.google-analytics.com

To use YouTube (Enhanced Privacy Mode) hosted videos (will be available in late July 2018)

http://youtube-nocookie.com/ *

https://*.googlevideo.com/*

https://*ytimg.com/*

To use YouTube hosted videos (will be deprecated in late July 2018)

https://s.youtube.com/*

https://www.youtube.com/*

https://*.googlevideo.com /*

https://*ytimg.com /*

To use Code.org hosted videos

Unblock: https://videos.code.org

Block: https://www.youtube.com/favicon.ico

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/favicon.ico

To use Internet Simulator

(in CS Principles)

https://api.pusherapp.com

wss://ws.pusherapp.com:443

To use Web Lab

https://downloads.computinginthecore.org/

https://codeprojects.org

Videos

All of our curriculum incorporates videos hosted on YouTube, though many schools block YouTube for students. In the event your school's network blocks YouTube, Code.org will default to a fallback video player, which requires Flash player. Chrome, iOS, and Android do not require extra software to play videos.

You can test your browser's settings to see if YouTube is blocked and to verify that fallback video player will work for your classroom at code.org/educate/IT.

G-Suite, Google Apps Restrictions on YouTube videos

If you're a G-suite administrator, be sure to check what your restriction settings are for YouTube. If you have specified the "Strict Restricted YouTube Access" setting or if you see messages stating 'this video has been restricted', you can add our channel to the approved list of channels. See this guide from Google to learn about how to add our channel to the approved list. You can also see this guide to learn more about different settings and which is best for your classroom.

If you are experiencing issues with videos in your classroom, contact us at [email protected].

Click here to view this article in Spanish.

When Code.org mentions your "school information", we are referring to your school's name and school ID (NCES ID).

What is an NCES ID?

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) developed online tools called the Public School Locator and the Private School Locator to enable school officials and others to obtain the correct name, address, phone number, NCES ID number, and other characteristics of a public school or school district when the requestor only has limited information.

The Public School Locator currently contains information as reported to NCES by state education agency officials in each state for school years 201516 and 201718, and the Private School Locator is current as of 201516. Whether or not a school has an entry in NCES' databases or an NCES ID number does not reflect that school's current accreditation status.

To retrieve information on public school districts, please visit the Public School District Locator.

NCES school ID codes have a variety of uses, including information for the Rural Educational Achievement Program (REAP), Safe Schools/Healthy Students, National Board of Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), and E-Rate applications.

(this information taken from the NCES website fast facts )

Educators should collect parent permission when creating student accounts. See the paragraph below from our Terms of Service ( http://code.org/tos ):

"If you are an Educator and you register an account for a student who is under the age of 13 (a “Child”), you represent and warrant that you or the educational organization you work for has proper permission to register the Child for educational services, such as Code.org, that collect some of the Child’s personal information for the use and benefit of the school and for no other commercial purpose. In addition, you agree to be bound by these Terms on behalf of the educational organization you work for."

Here's ahandout that can be sent home to parents explaining Code.org: http://code.org/privacy/student-privacy

This is a question we're asked frequently - and there's no one definite answer. It depends on what you already know, and why you want to learn more!

If you've never tried coding before, start with drag+drop to learn the concepts first. Try one of our CS Fundamentals Courses.

If you've tried drag+drop programming before and want to try text-based coding, the most widely-used programminglanguageis JavaScript. Try programming in AppLab, followed by Javascript on KhanAcademy or on Codecademy.Or, if you don't enjoy JavaScript, a greatlanguagefor first-time coders is Python.

If you want to build something specific, like an Android app, iOS app, a web site, or a database, there are specificlanguagesfor each. You can find resources from other organizations outside of Code.org at code.org/learn/beyond to dive into other languages than Javascript.

Here are the latest updates we've made across the Code.org website and platform! Updates from previous months can be found at the bottom of this article.

Professional Development

Teacher applications for middle and high school professional development are open across the country! You can learn more about professional learning in your region (workshop information, cost, and more) here.

App Lab, Game Lab, and Sprite Lab

Sprite Lab is silent no more, with a new sound block! We built a “play sound” block and hooked it up to the Game Lab sound library.

http://teacherblog.code.org/post/171058049004/codeorg-recent-product-improvements-january-and

More fonts in App Lab! We now support 13 fonts in App Lab, and allow users to customize the fonts of their UI elements.

Lists can now be watched in App Lab and Game Lab.

App Lab and Game Lab Debugger Improvements. We improved the following error and warning messages:

“TypeError: undefined is not a function" now displays the object and method that students attempted to call (ex: “sprite.doMove() is not a function”

For reserved words, we now display a more user-friendly message. (ex: “for is a reserved word in Game Lab. Use a different variable name.”

We also removed the “event” parameter from the default “onEvent” block. Most students didn’t use this, and that caused their code to be cluttered with unhelpful warnings that it was not used in their program.

Error messages within conditional statements now point to a more useful line number.

Various Sprite Lab bug fixes, including:

Conflicting variable/sprite names can no longer clobber functions or break Sprite Lab

Removing set background block now updates live preview

Sound previews now play in the sound dialog

Various improvements to App Lab to address common pain points, including:

Slowing down your turtle in turtle mode is even slower than before.

Added a confirmation dialog for deleting an image that is in use. We continue to see patterns in our data and receive reports that suggest students are unintentionally deleting images from their project without understanding the implications. We added a new confirmation step explaining that they are deleting an image that is in use.

Teacher Features

Teacher panel on Unit Overview page now displays students in a section. Clicking on a student displays that student’s unit progress. This work also allowed us to remove an extra page from our teacher dashboard hierarchy and use this page for two purposes.

OneNote Notebook for CS Discoveries has been released to Beta! Teachers can now set up a class OneNote Notebook that is populated with resources and activities from our CSD course and contains collaboration space for teachers and students. Teachers need a free, Office 365 teacher account to access the notebook, and their students also need free O365 accounts to use the notebook.To get a free Microsoft teacher account, go here. To setup a CSD OneNote Notebook, go here.

Platform

We updated our Microsoft account integration, to now allow for logging in via Office 365 authentication!

We launched an updated pair programming video.

We made improvements to avoid confusion between working on the 2017 version of a course, and the 2018 versions. Redirects are in place so that students who haven’t made progress on an older version of a course and are not assigned to an older version of the course will be always be taken to the newer version of the course.

International

Fixed voice playback for non-English languages in courses A-F - previously, voice playback was not working in courses A-F for non-English languages. This bug has been fixed!

Hour of Code

We launched Dance Party! Code a Dance Party to share with your friends, to the tune of 30+ hit songs!

A ton of Minecraft updates! We have done a big wave of asset and feature updates for the Minecraft: Voyage Aquatic tutorial, including:

Alex and Steve in a Boat!

Scuba-style!

Coral reef maze!

Previous product updates can be found here:

August through October 2018: https://support.code.org/hc/en-us/articles/360018406231-Product-updates-August-through-October-2018

May through July 2018: https://support.code.org/hc/en-us/articles/360008214691

March through April 2018: https://support.code.org/hc/en-us/articles/360003025591-Product-Updates-March-April-2018

September 2017: http://teacherblog.code.org/post/165618793489/rpiblog

October 2017: http://teacherblog.code.org/post/166608949599/codeorg-recent-product-improvements-october

November 2017: http://teacherblog.code.org/post/167986559754/codeorg-recent-product-improvements-november

January & February 2018:

Launched in 2013, Code.org is a non-profit dedicated to expanding participation in computer science by making it available in more schools, and increasing participation by women and underrepresented students of color. Our vision is that every student in every school should have the opportunity to learn computer science. We believe computer science and computer programming should be part of the core curriculum in education, alongside other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses, such as biology, physics, chemistry and algebra.

We're proud to offer all of our curriculum and course content completely free worldwide, without any sort of needed partnership to use our materials in your school or organization! You can find our curriculum in full at curriculum.code.org. We also offer professional development opportunities for K-12 teachers through either 1-day or multi-phase workshops. You can read more about these opportunities here.

We believe that every student around the world should have the opportunity to learn computer science. It helps nurture problem-solving skills, logic, and creativity. By starting early, students will have a foundation for success in any 21st-century career path. You can findmore relevant statistics at https://code.org/promote and https://code.org/about.

Here are the latest updates we've made across the Code.org website and platform. To see updates from previous months, please see the bottom of this article.

Computer Science Access Report

Curious if your school teaches computer science?Check out our updated K12 CS Access Report map. You can now search for any school in the US and find out if we think the school teaches computer science.

http://teacherblog.code.org/post/171058049004/codeorg-recent-product-improvements-january-and

The school pop up also has calls to action to either take the survey for the school (takes you to the form, with the school name pre-filled), send the survey to a teacher at this school (takes you to a sample letter you can send to a teacher at the school), or request to update the categorization for a school.

Find your school on our map and let us know what computer science opportunities are offered there!

Website & Curriculum

Our Project Gallery landing page now shows featured projects rather than the most recent ones, hand selected by our internal staff. You can still see the most recent projects by clicking the “View all” link on the right.We now have over 24 million projects on our platform!

We’ve added the AnswerDash tool to our highest trafficked professional learning pages (i.e. the professional learning landing page and the teacher application ) so users can get help quick by seeing the answers to our most FAQ. You can also submit their own question!

If a CS Principles level contains a video resource, students will see a new Help+Tips tab with a link to this video.

If a user tried signing into Code.org through Clever for the first time and wanted to link the login to an existing Code.org account, the linking would not work if the email address used for Code.org matched the Clever email address. This is now fixed!

The Artist now draws patterns when moving backward. Before, if students combined patterns with the “move backward” block, the Artist would not draw the pattern. Now students can draw this way and that way and anyway in between!

Teacher Experience

Teachers now have the ability to choose on a per student basis who can and cannot share App Lab / Game Lab / Web Lab projects through the new “sharing” column. As part of this, we will now be defaulting all students under 13 to not be able to share these projects without a teacher override.

While the March 30 priority deadline has passed, we are still accepting applications from teachers for our Professional Learning Program. We’ve refreshed the look of the announcements across our site pointing to the application.

The 'Manage Students' tab in your teacher dashboard got a facelift!

Teachers can now more quickly add students to the table - instead of first needing to press the “Add student” button and having a new row show up, a blank row is always there

We now show the student’s username not only in the email sections but also in all the other section types.

Teachers can also now edit their students’ name/age/gender in Google Classroom + Clever sections. Editing used to completely blocked in these section types.

If a teacher has not given us their school information yet, we now prompt them with an updated dialog, which is much easier to fill out than the previous one:

Code.org Maker App - for CS Discoveries course

When you sign into the standalone Code.org Maker App, you now get a new homepage that is specific to Maker related items:

The “Create a project” link will create a new App Lab app with Maker Toolkit enabled, which was also not possible before.

We built an .msi installer, necessary to enable IT admins to automatically install the Maker App on multiple computers across a network, and we’ve enabled “Install for all users” on Windows.

App Lab / Game Lab

The manage assets dialog box in App Lab now scrolls:

Fixed bug in App Lab that was preventing some Chrome 64 users from using design mode entirely.

We now only save a new version of an App Lab / Game Lab project if changes have been made to the code, design mode, or animations. That way, we don’t end up with duplicate versions!

If a user uploaded an image to the animation tab in Game Lab and duplicated it, making edits to the original uploaded animation would also change the duplicated animation. This is now fixed!

If you've any questions on these updates, feel free to contact us at [email protected]!

Previous product updates can be found here:

September 2017: http://teacherblog.code.org/post/165618793489/rpiblog

October 2017: http://teacherblog.code.org/post/166608949599/codeorg-recent-product-improvements-october

November 2017: http://teacherblog.code.org/post/167986559754/codeorg-recent-product-improvements-november

January& February 2018:

Here are the latest updates we've made across the Code.org website and platform. To see updates from previous months, please see the bottom of this article.

Videos

We recently made an important IT change relating to how our videos are presented for classrooms that may have YouTube or other URLs blocked. You can read about this change here.

Teacher Experience

We revamped the 'view progress' tab in your teacher dashboard, which will now show vertically-filling bars for each lesson to make it easier to view your classroom progress at a glance.

http://teacherblog.code.org/post/171058049004/codeorg-recent-product-improvements-january-and

Teachers can also see pair programming icons in the detailed view of the progress tab to see where students were paired:

The assessments tab for CS Principles and CS Discoveries teachers has been redesigned to be more user-friendly. You'll be able to easily see top questions that students are struggling with, as well as assessment results for individual students.

Teachers can now provide written feedback for students on most CS Principles and CS Discoveries levels:

Accounts

We updated the experience for deleting your account to make it clearer what action you're taking. We changed some layout on the 'account settings' page so that the “Delete” button appears more separate and visually striking, and we'll ask you additional confirmation questions to ensure you're aware of all effects.

PowerSchool users can now create a new account or log into an existing account directly through PowerSchool. This works for both teachers and students.

We now ask EU users to consent to transferring their data to the US. This is enforced on account creation or via a consent dialog (if they already have an account). This is a GDPR requirement.

Website & Curriculum

The new 2018 versions of Courses A-F are now available, and are the defaults on the teacher dashboard! These new courses contain tons of changes based on what we learned in the last year, including new lessons, ramp-ups, and Sprite Lab. Read more about these courses here.

We added the text to speech button to the 2018 versions of the CS Discoveries and CS Principles courses.

Students are now less likely to crash their browser after placing a function call inside the definition of that same function (this is known as recursion), which causes an infinite loop.We’ve now improved our ability to catch these cases and prevent crashes.

The Code.org Advocacy Coalition is a non-partisan group of 60 organizations that believe computer science should be part of the core curriculum in education. Together, the coalition has been driving 9 policies to make computer science a fundamental part of the K-12 education system. Previously, we linked to the Advocacy Coalition with https://code.org/advocacy, but now we’ve redesigned and given it its very own home at https://advocacy.code.org. This new landing page will be the go-to destination for advocates looking to support computer science education bills and policies in their state.

App Lab / Game Lab

You can now export your animations from Game Lab as a GIF or individual image file.

When duplicating a design element to another screen in AppLab, it sometimes isn’t clear that anything happened because the other screen might end up looking identical. So now we show a temporary pop up on the display screen:

App Lab now has a “Copy to screen” feature that lets you duplicate an element to another screen in design mode:

We added basic mobile support for Game Lab apps. Mouse clicks map to touch events, and arrow keys map to the D-Pad and the spacebar maps to the orange button.

CS Fundamentals

Toolbox categories are now translatable. In the past, category names were not hooked up to be translated. Translations are now coming in, pictured here in Spanish (left panel):

We added a grid overlay to Collector puzzles. This was a very common stumbling block for students that was reported by teachers and facilitators. While the cave walls have a grid pattern, Collector puzzles involve many wide-open spaces, which were hard to count out.

If you've any questions on these updates, feel free to contact us at [email protected].

Previous product updates can be found here:

March and April 2018: https://support.code.org/hc/en-us/articles/360003025591-Product-Updates-March-April-2018

September 2017: http://teacherblog.code.org/post/165618793489/rpiblog

October 2017: http://teacherblog.code.org/post/166608949599/codeorg-recent-product-improvements-october

November 2017: http://teacherblog.code.org/post/167986559754/codeorg-recent-product-improvements-november

January& February 2018:

Here are the latest updates we've made across the Code.org website and platform! Updates from previous months can be found at the bottom of this article.

Professional Development

Teacher Applications for our middle and high school professional development programs in 2019 are now open in a few regions across the country! You can learn more about professional learning in your region (workshop information, cost/fees, when applications open) by entering your zip code here.

Platform

We launched the new Minecraft: Voyage Aquatic Hour of Code course!

We added the ability to record your own sounds in Game Lab and App Lab! http://teacherblog.code.org/post/171058049004/codeorg-recent-product-improvements-january-and

In artist projects, weno longer require students to hit “Run” and watch the artist after every code change. This will allow students to make changes on creative projects much more quickly, and visualize changes to parameters like angles and lengths.

Teacher features

We added a comment box feature, allowing teachers to provide written feedback to students in App Lab, Game Lab, and Web Lab levels:

Clicking on a progress box in the summary view takes the teacher to the detailed view now.Clicking on this box showing progress in a given lesson:

Will now take you to this detailed view with bubbles:

We made improvements related to making the hiding / showing experience for stages and units more obvious and intuitive for teachers.We make sure a section is selected by default when going to a course or unit page so that you see the hiding / showing UI. We also made the UI for picking a section more prominent:

If teacher hides a unit from a section and then goes to view the unit page, they’ll see a warning letting them know that unit is hidden:

If a teacher tries to assign a hidden unit to a section, we will warn them that the unit is hidden and give them the option to unhide it as part of assigning it:

The blue Teacher Panel now remembers whether you expanded or collapsed it when you move between lessons!. It used to re-expand every time you opened a page.

International

We launched the Hour of Code: Latin America video on code.org and hourofcode.com! You can also see this video if you switch the site to be in Spanish or Portuguese.

We added an improved version of the curriculum versioning dialog in order to be able to show which languages a given version supports!

Courses A-F are now available in Spanish and English.When a non-English user visits our course catalog page (aka our international course catalog), we recommend these courses. Our international partners are currently working on translating Courses A-F into more languages. In the meantime, Courses 1-4 are still available in many other languages.

Previous product updates can be found here:

May through July 2018: https://support.code.org/hc/en-us/articles/360008214691

March through April 2018: https://support.code.org/hc/en-us/articles/360003025591-Product-Updates-March-April-2018

September 2017: http://teacherblog.code.org/post/165618793489/rpiblog

October 2017: http://teacherblog.code.org/post/166608949599/codeorg-recent-product-improvements-october

November 2017: http://teacherblog.code.org/post/167986559754/codeorg-recent-product-improvements-november

January & February 2018:

On February 26, 2019 we released a new feature in App Lab that allows students to customize the fonts used in their apps. As part of this change, we set Arial as the default font for all apps. If you'd like to customize the fonts in your App Lab project, you can do so in Design Mode. Select the element for which you want to change the font, and choose a new "font family" from the dropdown in the "Properties" tab:

App Lab currently supports 13 fonts, displayed here:

CS Discoveries

50 or more hours of instruction per section for a semester-long CS Discoveries course are normally required to participate in the Professional Learning Program, though we will consider applications with at least 30 hours for a limited number of seats.

We suggest using this formula to see if your course implementation plans qualify for Code.org's Professional Learning Program.

For semester-long courses:

Semester hours = (length of one class) x (number of days per week the class will be offered) x (number of weeks in a semester)

For year-long courses:

Year hours = (length of one class) x (number of days per week the class will be offered) x (number of weeks in the school year)

For example, If your classes are:

45 mins long, 5 days a week --> 3.75 hours per week --> 67.5 hours per semester (18 weeks) --> 135 hours per year (36 weeks): Qualifies

45 mins long, 3 days a week --> 2.25 hours per week --> 40.5 hours per semester --> 81 hours per year: Does not qualify for full year course, but does qualify for one semester's worth of content to be taught over 36 weeks.

CS Principles (AP or intro-level)

100 or more hours of CS Principles instruction per section are normally required to participate in the Professional Learning Program, though we will consider applications for non-AP classes with at least 50 hours for a limited number of seats.

We suggest using this formula to see if your course implementation plans qualify for Code.org's Professional Learning Program.

For semester-long courses:

Semester hours = (length of one class) x (number of days per week the class will be offered) x (number of weeks in a semester)

For year-long courses:

Year hours = (length of one class) x (number of days per week the class will be offered) x (number of weeks in the school year)

For example, If your classes are:

Semester-long course: 45 mins long, 3 days a week --> 3.75 hours per week --> 40.5 hours per semester (18 weeks) --> Does not qualify

Semester-long course (block schedule): 90 mins long, 5 days a week --> 7.5 hours per week --> 135 hours per semester (18 weeks) --> Qualifies*

Year-long course: 45 mins long, 5 days a week --> 3.75 hours per week --> 135 hours per year (36 weeks): Qualifies

*Note: Code.org does not recommend teaching AP CS Principles on a block schedule if this will only be offered during the second semester, as this schedulelikely does notallow sufficient time for students to prepare for and participate in the AP CS Principles exam.If you are in this situation, please ensure that you have 100+ hours with studentsbefore the end of April, and consider reaching out to the Regional Partner in your area to understand whether the Professional Learning Program will meet your needs.

Code.org courses offer two different types of evaluation rubrics that teachers can use to gauge student learning:

Mini-rubrics (CS Discoveries 2019-2020 - only) NEW!

Project rubrics (CS Discoveries, CS Principles, Course E, and Course F)

Mini-rubrics

What are mini-rubrics?

Mini-rubrics are small, embedded rubrics that evaluate a single key concept and are tied to select programming levels. They provide details about the level’s key concept, outline ways students can demonstrate their understanding of that concept, and let teachers quickly evaluate a student’s performance on the level.

Viewing student progress

How should I use mini-rubrics?

If a teacher fills out the mini-rubric for the student and clicks “save and share,” this feedback will be automatically available to that student in the Feedback tab on the level. Teachers can update mini-rubrics and teacher feedback as many times as they want so students can make corrections to their work and resubmit it for teacher review.

Mini-rubric details cannot be edited by teachers, but you can use the teacher feedback box to provide additional context or details to students if you wish.

Where can I find mini-rubrics?

Mini-rubrics can be found on select programming levels in the CS Discoveries 2019 - 2020 course. Teachers can see mini-rubrics by clicking the “Feedback” tab on programming levels that are marked as recommended assessment opportunities.

Students and teachers can also see these rubrics before they start working on a level by clicking the “Key Concept” tab on a level with a mini-rubric.

Once teachers send feedback to students, students can find their mini-rubric evaluation under the “Feedback” tab.

Project rubrics

What are project rubrics?

Project rubrics accompany some larger programming projects and provide a recommended set of concepts for teachers to use when evaluating a student’s progress on that project. The rubrics are available as Google Docs, Microsoft Word documents, or PDFs.

How should I use project rubrics?

We recommend sharing project rubrics with students when you assign a project (note: in CS Discoveries, these rubrics will be available to students on the first level of a project lesson). This makes expectations for students clear before the project starts. Teachers are also welcome to save a copy of the rubric for themselves and make edits that are relevant to their classroom(s) and students.

For some projects in CS Discoveries, we’ve include Sample Marked Rubrics that demonstrate how six different sample projects with different levels of evidence could be evaluated using the rubric.Look for these Sample Marked Rubrics in the Teacher Markdown area of the project instruction level.

Where can I find project rubrics?

Project rubrics can be found within select Lesson Plans under the links header on the first page of the plan. Generally, programming projects that are also recommended assessment opportunities have rubrics available.

Want to learn more about assessing student work?

Check out these resources:

CSD Guide to Assessment

Assessing student progress and learning in CS Discoveries and CS Principles

Why do my students’ levels turn green in CS Discoveries and CS Principles even if they don’t have the right answer?

Hour of Code 2019 will occur during Computer Science Education Week, December 9-15!

How do I change my Code.org student account to a teacher account?

If you currently have a Code.org student account that needs to get updated to a teacher account, you can do so from your account settings pageas long as you're not currently a student in another teacher's section. We do not allow students in a teacher's section to update their account in order to prevent misuse of this functionality.

Once you've made sure you are not in any teacher's section, follow these steps to update your account:

Sign into your Code.org account

Go to your Account Settings page

If you see a banner to update your accounts page, go ahead and click the "Try New Version" button. Eventually, everyone will be moved to the new version automatically.

studio.code.org/home

Scroll down to the near the bottom of the accounts page and look for a section that says "Account Type." It will look like this:

Select "Teacher" in the dropdown and hit "Update Account Type."

You will see a dialog that asks you for your primary email address as this is required for teachers. Fill out the dialog and hit "Update to teacher account." You should now have a teacher account!

Checking if you're in a teacher's section

You can check if you're in a teacher's section by signing into your account, going to your homepage, and scrolling down until you see a section called "Classroom Sections." Here, you should see a list of classroom sections you're in. If you don't see any sections listed, that means you're in a teacher's section. If you do see a section listed, you will need to contact them and ask them to remove you from their section. Unfortunately, we do not allow students to remove themselves from a teacher's section.

How do I change my Code.org teacher account to a student account?

If you currently have a Code.org teacher account that needs to get updated to a student account, you can do so from your account settings pageas long as you don't currently manage any sections. If you have sections, you must first delete them before you can become a student.

Once you've made sure you don't manage any sections, follow these steps to update your account:

Sign into your Code.org account

Go to your Account Settings page

If you see a banner to update your accounts page, go ahead and click the "Try New Version" button. Eventually, everyone will be moved to the new version automatically.

Scroll down to the near the bottom of the accounts page and look for a section that says "Account Type." It will look like this:

Select "Student" in the dropdown and hit "Update Account Type." You should now have a student account!

Checking if you currently manage any sections

You can check if you manage any sections by signing into your account, going to your homepage, and checking if you have anything listed under "Classroom Sections." If you do, you will first need to delete these sections before you can change your teacher account to a student account. Learn more about how to delete sections here. Please note that you will need to fully delete these sections - simply archiving them will not be enough.

If you do not see the option to upgrade your account type:

This means you are in at least one teacher's section. You need to contact them to have yourself removed from the section. Visit your homepage () and scroll to the bottom to see all of the sections you are in, along with the teacher's name who made the section, and its 6-character code.

Once you are not in any sections, you will see the option to upgrade your account back on your Account Settings page! You can then rejoin the sections you were removed from by visiting code.org/join to enter the section's 6-character code to rejoin it.

A solid green bubble on a programming level in CS Discoveries or CS Principles simply means that the student has indicated they are done with the given level. In these courses, we strive to give students an opportunity to express their creativity and think outside the box, so we are less prescriptive for how students complete a level. For example, we may ask the student to draw a square on the screen, but might not care if it’s a specific size or color. This means that different students can have completely different and valid solutions for the same programming level, and makes it very difficult for us to automatically validate students’ work.

We recommend looking at student work on levels marked as recommended assessment opportunities to determine if a student is grasping key concepts. This approach will hopefully alleviate the need to go through and check each student’s work on every level. If you see a specific student is missing key concepts on an assessment opportunity, then you can go back and look at other skill building levels to see where they might be struggling.

Want to learn more about assessing student work?

Check out these resources:

CSD Guide to Assessment

Assessing student progress and learning in CS Discoveries and CS Principles

Rubrics in Code.org courses

Viewing student progress

If you see something inappropriate in the public project gallery, please report it to us. Here are the steps for how to report a project:

Select the app you'd like to report

At the bottom right of the app, select "Built on Code Studio"

Select "Report Abuse"

Fill out the form and select "Submit"

Any reported apps will be taken down immediately and will not be shareable. Thank you for helping us keep this space safe for all students.