Anyone using Scratch at school?

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Permalink Reply by Crystal Gasell on April 4, 2008 at 5:53am

I used Scratch with my seventh graders this year to create an educational game that teaches a language arts concept. Students started by walking through the tutorials on MITs website. Then, students modified an existing Scratch game in order to get the hang of the functions of the program. Some students used the modified version as a starting point and others created a game from nothing.

When the project was complete, students raved about how much they enjoyed using the technology. They were amazed at how much reading the directions carefully helped them. They also learned about their LA concept. Overall, it was successful. I haven't uploaded any of their games yet to the website, but I will attempt to do that next week.

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Permalink Reply by Louis Fleming on April 17, 2008 at 7:15pm

I am currently using Scratch with my high school media students. They are enjoying the challenge of building games and animations with it.

Wish there were more lesson plans being shared out there.

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Permalink Reply by KRandall on April 18, 2008 at 4:51am

Take a look at the wiki I started. There are a couple links to web sites where people have posted lessons, plus I'm trying to get people to post them directly at the wiki.

http://www.classroom20wiki.com/Scratch

The Scratch team says they are working on more extensive teacher resource site, with a place for sharing resources. ETA is sometime this summer.

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Permalink Reply by Derwin Kitch on April 18, 2008 at 3:11am

I used Scratch with my Grade 2-5 classes. The Grade 5 homeroom teachers were wanting to have the students write a story so we used Scratch's backgrounds and sprites as the basis for the stories. The students then went back to LA class and wrote their stories. Then in computer class, they animated the climax to their story using the characters and settings.

The homeroom teachers liked the idea of using Scratch to help 'spark' the students imagination. The students enjoyed using Scratch a lot. My Grade 2s will even come in to the lab at open lunch and fly around on Scratch. Of course, they're just putting in text and some simple animation, but they find it easy enough to use to do that.

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Permalink Reply by Sylvia Martinez on April 19, 2008 at 5:44pm

Anyone using Scratch might like Bill Kerr's latest blog post - Teaching fractions through instructional design. Bill is a great teacher from Australia and is well known in the children's programming, children designing games, etc. community.

This post talks about how to teach fractions by letting kids make games and quizzes about fractions using Scratch. He's got a great section about talking to the parents about what he's doing so they get it too.

Bill really goes into the details about why programming is such a valuable learning opportunity for students, and links back to another article of his that goes even deeper into the subject. Educational Software: Designed by Kids for Kids

Really important work going on in Australia exploring game programming BY kids as a learning experience. I wrote about the community there in a post a while back.

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Permalink Reply by Darrel on April 20, 2008 at 4:34am

We use Scratch widely throughout the Sunraysia Mallee Schools network. Students usually use it for game development and animation but it is the higher order thinking that really makes it worthwhile!
I have started a free Moodle course with guest access turned on. http://need2learn.net/course/view.php?id=95 I have been planning to make the course available as a download for those with a Moodle installation. Let me know if you think it would be useful or want to help add to it.

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Permalink Reply by Lorraine on April 20, 2008 at 4:40am

David, this is an excellent tutorlal. It's very user-friendly. I was thinking that it would be great to allow students to access a page like this with the editing option turned off.

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Permalink Reply by Darrel on April 20, 2008 at 4:45am

G'day Lorraine,
It's actually a full course with forums, journal activities, lessons, and a quiz. What do you mean 'with the editing turned off'? Not sure if I follow.
Kind Regards
Darrel

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Permalink Reply by Blanca on April 20, 2008 at 6:40pm

Darrel,
What an excellent course! I definitely think it is useful and the Moodle interface is clean and simple. My districts do not use Moodle for children yet but we are looking into it. I have used Moodle in the past for staff development. What types of areas would you like to add to it? I will be happy to help if I can. Thank you for sharing.
Blanca

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Permalink Reply by Darrel on April 21, 2008 at 3:34am

Bianca,
If you sign up for an account on need2learn.net I can add you in as a teacher and then you can edit. I'd like to add more lessons, more quiz questions, anything you think that will help students get into scratch.
Kind Regards
Darrel

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Permalink Reply by Gerald Ardito on April 21, 2008 at 5:54am

I taught an afterschool program using Scratch and Alice in the beginning of the year. I teach in a middle school and had mostly 6th and 7th graders in the class.

The best part was the community that they formed. Students would kind of "shout out" where they were stuck and another student (or me) would help them work it through. It was one of the most satisfying experiences I have had as a teacher.

This summer, I plan on developing some lesson plans within my typical science classes using Scratch and Alice. I am also experimenting with Edusim.

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