Leaning Toward Codespaces

Published: 2023-12-13 7:07 AM

Category: Technology | Tags: code, computer science, comp sci, teaching, class, tools

I'm prepping a revamp of the computer science class we have available at school for next year and my first task has been to figure out a cloud runtime for students. We're on Chromebooks and I would prefer to give kids developer mode access so they can work locally, but that's not an option with my technology director. Replit was one of the education go-to recommendations, but they're shutting down their Teams tool in March to focus on AI tools instead (gag).

GitHub's Codespaces are looking like a good option right now. The fact that I can set up specific dev environments for students ready to go with tooling and extensions available is very appealing. I've switched my preference to modal text editor (I'm writing this in Helix - check it out) but for students, VS Code will be more accessible and easier to dive into.

Codespaces runs a virtual machine right from a repository on GitHub. I can have sample code, tests, and prompts all ready to go for them - students just click the button and get to work in the browser. Because it's a container, they still need to learn how to make changes, stage, commit, and push to the repo, so the workflow skills I'm after can still be developed.

I haven't committed (ha) yet because I still need to look into usage quotas. There is a generous free tier for free use and education has an expanded free tier. I want to make sure that the quota is A) per person and not for the class and B) that the quota is only used when the students are actually working in the environment. I think that's the case, but I need to verify. It would be pretty awkward to turn a large cloud bill into the school because kids are coding too much.