![]() “The sudden death of Touch Develop and CCGA has me deep into an expounding mood. Interestingly, as Microsoft set up a closed Yammer group for teachers using the Touch Develop, I can't find any quotes or reactions but to quote Garth's CS Education Blog (always worth reading) Seriously? This is PR? Surely we all learned very early that telling a teacher what to do is never a good idea. Microsoft advises that all teachers have scripts graded by the 23rd of May. What if we are still using CCGA or Touch Develop this term? Wow so your just pulling the plug on my projects? This means that all cloud hosted TD resources (scripts, images, etc.) will no longer be available from onward." "We wish to inform you that the Touch Develop (TD) service (at will be shut down permanently on May 23, 2018. The Touch Develop blog isn't much better: "Microsoft Touch Develop, a project developed by Microsoft Research to provide computing education to any student on any device, will no longer be available as of As a result, customers using the “Creative Coding Through Games and Apps” (CCGA) course based on Touch Develop will no longer have access as of May 23, 2018." The MakeCode blog puts it fairly directly: The manner in which Touch Develop has been dropped is interesting because of its, probably unintended, expression of arrogance. ![]() It seems as if the standard Microsoft situation of "there can only be one" has come to pass yet again and Touch Develop has been dropped. It isn't a bad system, but it has its problems from an educational point of view. The real problems seems to be that a different group in Microsoft is promoting MakeCode - a blocks-oriented, TypeScript-based system that runs on the Micro:bit, Minecraft, chibi, Playground Express, Grove Zero and Cue. Of course the teachers who have been left high and dry are not in such a sunny place. Nice isn't it? You can only hope that Touch Develop has a happy retirement in a sunny place siting on a beach perhaps. Now, after persuading teachers to use its lesson plans, it is simply dropping support - or rather as the Touch Develop page puts it "retiring on May 23, 2018". In a sense it was, but Microsoft provided the servers needed to create the programs and try them out. ![]() In 2015 Microsoft did the right thing and open-sourced Touch Develop, and you might have thought that this meant that using it was a safe option. It was a good way to make code construction easier. It allowed a program to be constructed by selecting instructions from menus and then customizing by typing. It was organized around the use of Touch Develop, an app that let you code without typing but also without using a block editor. It provides a 6, 9, 12 or 18-week instructor-led course complete with day-to-day lesson plans. Microsoft has a number of educational projects, but Touch Develop was a flagship used in its Creative Coding Though Games And Apps (CCGA). Then why did Microsoft just kill its Touch Develop tool at the core of its education through games program? The teachers get the tools they need and Microsoft gets their hearts and minds. However, you might think that it was OK to trust the company's intentions toward education. Microsoft is a mess when it comes to anything off the main track of Azure. Microsoft Kills Touch Develop - Tells Teachers Get Scripts Marked By May 23
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