March 2026 Update

So far, 2026 has been a great year for Pickcode. We’ve had 9,000 teachers and students sign up for the platform and users have run code over 1.5 million times! As always, our goal is to create a reliable and lasting resource for the CS teaching community.

Graphics projects for free users

This month, we’ve added the ability for users on the free plan to create up to five graphics projects in Python and Java. This will allow everyone to try making projects that use Turtle, Pygame, etc. without starting a Classroom trial (although we’d be happy to set you up with one!)

We’ve updated the project creation menu to make it easier to understand the difference between Console and Graphics projects for Python and Java. For free plan users, this will also display your limit of remaining graphics projects.

Switch students between classes

You can now switch students between your classes. From a class’s “Members” tab, click a student and select “Switch Class”.

Faster home screen loading times

We’ve added a performance improvement that makes your home screen load more quickly. By our measurements, the loading time has been reduced by at least 50%. We’re always looking for areas to improve performance and loading times, so if you notice something is slow for you, let us know!

Other fixes and improvements

Add a button for assigning lessons directly from the editor
Show assignment due dates to students
Add a template JUnit test file when adding unit tests
Automatically focus the keyboard on the graphics screen when running a graphics project
Fix an issue with javafx.media class availability for playing videos within Java Graphics projects
Display an error message if there’s an issue creating a student account from the classes screen
Increase the maximum file upload size to 10mb (previously 5mb)
Fix issue with the back button when students start a lesson from a link

Spring roadmap

Here’s what we’re planning for the rest of the spring:
Allow for running Python and Java code on Pickcode without creating an account, so that students can demonstrate what their code does to others more easily
Allow teachers to share the lessons they’ve created with the community
Allow for embedding code editors on other sites
Improve the login system to reduce errors and allow users to stay logged in for longer

May 2026 Update

It’s almost the end of the school year! AP exams are over, graduation ceremonies are happening, and summer is around the corner. Here's what we've been up to this month: Python 3.14 We’ve upgraded the Python version for our code runners to 3.

April 2026 Update

Our goal with Pickcode has always been to provide a reliable and lasting service for teachers. That’s why we’re excited to announce that we reached two important milestones in April: We reached 40,000 registered users, and we’ve signed our first contract with a customer that extends

February 2026 Update

In January, we mentioned we’ve been shoveling snow and watching the Patriots. The Patriots are finished, but the snow isn’t. Regardless, we’ve been hard at work improving Pickcode. In February, we added a few nice features to Pickcode Classroom while we continue working towards bigger goals for

January 2026 Update

Happy new year! Between shoveling snow and watching the Patriots (we’re based in Cambridge, MA), we’ve been hard at work improving Pickcode. This month we were mainly focused on bug fixes and minor improvements, and we’ll be working on bigger initiatives later on in the spring. If