🚀 Introducing Coding Rooms in CSUK Coder{+}

Real-Time Collaborative Programming for the Classroom

We’re excited to finally launch one of the most requested features on the CSUK platform — Coding Rooms, now available inside free coding tasks and self-marking tasks on CSUK Coder{+}.

Teachers have been asking for a way to support pair programming, collaboration, and live oversight of student coding — and Coding Rooms deliver exactly that.

This update transforms coding tasks from a solo activity into a live, collaborative classroom experience, while still giving teachers full control.

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🧑‍💻 What are Coding Rooms?

When creating a Free Coding or Self-Marking task, teachers can now choose a Coding Room mode:

  • Individual rooms – one private coding space per student

  • Pair programming rooms – one shared coding space per pair of students

Each room is a live, real-time coding environment, complete with chat, role management, and teacher oversight.

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👥 Pair Programming, Built for the Classroom

In Pair Programming mode, students are automatically assigned roles:

  • Coder

    • Full write/edit access to the code

  • CoPilot

    • Read-only access (viewer mode)

    • Can observe, discuss, and guide

Both students have access to built-in chat, allowing them to talk through logic, debug together, and explain ideas — just like real-world software development.

🔁 Roles can be swapped at any time, encouraging balanced participation and shared responsibility.

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💬 Teacher-Controlled Chat

Teachers remain fully in control:

  • Chat can be enabled or disabled per task

  • When enabled, chat supports:

    • Collaborative problem solving

    • Code discussion

    • Debugging conversations

This makes Coding Rooms suitable for:

  • Structured pair work

  • Exam-style silent tasks

  • Guided collaboration sessions

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👀 Live Teacher View: See Every Room in Real Time

One of the most powerful aspects of Coding Rooms is the Teacher Live View.

From a single screen, teachers can:

  • See all active rooms at once

  • Watch code being written live

  • Instantly spot:

    • Who is on task

    • Who is stuck

    • Who hasn’t started

No more guessing. No more walking around trying to glimpse screens.

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🚪 Jump Into Any Room, Anytime

Need to intervene, support, or challenge?

Teachers can:

  • Jump into any coding room instantly

  • View the code exactly as students see it

  • Join the chat

  • Take over coding if needed

  • Model solutions live

This makes Coding Rooms ideal for:

  • Live feedback

  • Targeted intervention

  • Stretch and challenge

  • Whole-class modelling

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🐢 Turtle, PyGame, NumPy & Matplotlib Support

Coding Rooms (and all task pages) now support visual and data-driven Python libraries, making lessons more engaging and expressive:

  • 🐢 Turtle – with live canvas rendering for drawings and shapes

  • 🎮 PyGame (partial implementation) – for simple games and animations

  • 📊 Matplotlib – for graphs and data visualisation

  • 🔢 NumPy – for numerical operations and arrays

This opens the door to:

  • Creative programming

  • Visual problem solving

  • Data science foundations

  • Cross-curricular projects

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📈 Quality-of-Life Improvements Across the Platform

Alongside Coding Rooms, we’ve also rolled out improvements across CSUK Coder{+}:

  • Dynamic table resizing for:

    • PyQuests

    • Courses

    • All task tables

  • Better spacing, responsiveness, and readability

  • A smoother experience on smaller screens and laptops

These changes make navigating tasks, tracking progress, and managing classes faster and clearer.

🎯 Why This Matters

Coding Rooms bring together:

Collaboration

Real-time feedback

Teacher visibility

Industry-authentic practice

All inside a tool teachers already use and trust.

This has been one of our most requested features, and we’re proud to finally put it into your hands.

✅ Ready to Try Coding Rooms?

Coding Rooms are available now in CSUK Coder{+} for both Free Coding and Self-Marking tasks.

If you already use CSUK for coding — you’re ready to go.

👉 Create a task
👉 Choose your Coding Room mode
👉 Watch collaboration come alive

As always, we’d love your feedback as we continue to refine and expand this feature.

CSUK:Coder

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