I am starting this thread for students to discuss our project that will start tomorrow at River Bend for 7&8 grade GT students. The following rules apply to this thread.
1. there are no absolute rules;=>
2. But, keep your post short.
3. Ask questions about Scratch and answer questions if you know the answer.
As a first post please let me know that you have logged on successfully and your first impressions of the presentation on Friday and about Scratch.
I invite all other Scratch educators to participate in this thread. Our main goal is to see if we can have Scratch be used in all the classes at River Bend MS and to use it both for teaching Animation and programming and as a content tool for teaching/learning math, science, history, art, ....(as a PowerPoint on Steroids)
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DrSuper
I am interested in following your project at River Bend. I am the director of the USA Computing Olympiad ( www.usaco.org) and we are looking for ways to introduce computational science to young people.
I am interested in collecting and categorizing simple Scratch challenges whose successful completion leads to a competency level in computational science (algorithms + programming).
I'll be watching and participating in your project. Good luck.
USACO
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This is great. I will let you know how it goes. This could also help to get Scratch into schools in a big way. With the emphasis on standardized testing somehow we need to prove that using Scratch we can help the scores come up. You should also follow some of the other threads (if you are not already doing it) where Scratch is being discussed as an introductory language for leaning to program. I am more interested in content that can be put in but the two will go hand in hand.
Best Regards
Behrouz
drsuper@msn.com
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DrSuper,
I want to say Good Luck with your project. Maybe you could tell me what kind of Project you are going to make with your 7th and 8th GT students. I am interested in how people teach Scratch in schools and what they make together.
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I will be experimenting. My goal is to introduce Scratch as content provider (PowerPoint on Steroids) for math and science and other subjects and to have animation and game development as a by product. However, from our first session today, I suspect that most students will be attracted to the game making and animation so we will see how this goes. ffred, dapontes and I are putting together a group to provide these types of types of activities and games and puzzles for this age group. In the first session I just covered your introductory video and showed a few puzzles and games. 8 of the 18 8th graders actually ask and were granted a pass to go to the computer lab with me and sign-on and download scratch. several had ppoor scratchie bancing all over and drawing pollak paintingswithing 15 minutes;=>
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