Welcome to the sixth post in our “Teaching through COVID-19” series. A quick recap for those just tuning in. In the past few weeks, bahabeach has published different installments in our series “Teaching through COVID-19”, with each article highlighting a different learning product. These posts are meant to answer your most frequently asked questions about learning products, and how you can use them in a distance learning capacity. Our post today covers Code Avengers, a fantastic learning platform for PC, Mac, and Chromebook based learning. Check out the details about launching and utilizing Code Avengers below.
- Code Avengers is mapped to which bahabeach certifications?
- What features are available in this program to help my students continue learning at home?
- The Code Avengers platform gives student automatic feedback on their performance and guides students toward other self-help options all within the platform. Our friendly support team is also available to support students and teachers with any questions.
- How do my students get access and set up their accounts?
- Before your students can access Code Avengers, you, as the teacher, will need to set up their accounts. Code Avengers has made this super simple! You can actually upload a CSV file, for example, with all your students’ information, and it will create separate accounts for each of them. Simply follow these steps:
- From the profile page, click on the “Teachers” tab.
- Click the “Student Account Setup” button. This will take you to the account setup page.
- Create a spreadsheet with the correct headings. You will need columns with the following headings:
- First Name
- Last Name
- Email
- Password
- Class (such as A3, or Fourth Period)
- Add your student data and save the file. Click “Select File” and upload the file.
- Once you have clicked the "Select File" button, click the "choose file" button and locate the student file on your computer.
- Select a file, then you can choose to either create free accounts or create premium accounts for your students. Those participating in the 90-day trial with bahabeach have access to premium accounts.
- Once you have completed this process, you can select the “email” button above the list of recently created student accounts to send an email with their login information to obtain access to their Code Avengers courses.
- Do my students need to install anything?
- No. Code Avengers is entirely browser based, so students won’t need to install any applications to use the platform.
- What web browsers work best?
- Code Avengers recommends Google Chrome, however, any updated internet browser should work as well.
- Can they work offline?
- No. Because Code Avengers is browser based, students must have an internet connection to be able to access their courses.
- Is there a video/demonstration component that the students can complete before taking any practice quizzes?
- Each course on the platform is made up of lessons. The number of lessons vary between courses but the format of the lessons all follow the same structure. Each lesson focuses on a topic or concept which is broken down into five simple tasks. Each task contains a “learn” section that explains the topic in text format with video optional in many courses, the next section, “create” will require students to write code in a specific programming language. This approach is based on the “learn by doing” method.
- Can I see what my students are doing? What they have completed, how they have done on their quizzes, etc.
- Absolutely! If you sign into your Code Avengers account, and click on the “Teacher” tab, and “Student Progress Chart” you will be able to track students’ progress, making it easy to see what is being completed while your students are doing classes remotely.
- The reporting within Code Avengers is color coded, so you can easily see which students are doing well, and which need additional assistance. Dark green means the students have completed the tasks without any errors. Light green means the student was able to complete 80% of the tasks correctly. Orange means the student was able to complete 70-79% of the tasks correctly. Lastly, red means the student completed 0-69% of the tasks correctly.
- Is your course broken up in modules so I can assign short learning every day?
- Yes. The Pro courses are broken down into ten or more lessons, with five tasks in each lesson. This creates small milestones along the way, so students are not overwhelmed by the amount of content, and you can breakdown the tasks more easily.
- What works without downloads and what needs to be downloaded to be fully functional?
- All Code Avengers courses are browser based, so students won’t need to download anything to be able to access and move through their courses.
- Can I give feedback to my students within their account?
- Teachers have the ability to view student progress and work within the platform but communication with students will have to be done externally via email or video conferencing.
Looking for a more visual representation of the platform? Code Avengers has created video tutorials that can be found here.