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#1 2007-11-11 13:16:20

dehrha02
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-05-18
Posts: 19

Forming a school scratch club.....

I'm attempting to form a drop-in Scratch Club at my daughters' school starting in January.  Thanks to all who have shared their fantastic ideas and resources on these forums and their own websites. From what I've read I need to make sure these things are in place.....

Resources:

1 to 1 computer ratio
projector for grouping/sharing/reflection
Digital Camera and release/permission forms
Microphone
Scratch Cards/Getting Started/Reference guides
project storage (probably flash drives)

To Get Started:

*Group discussion of the possibilities in scratch: Story telling, Animation, Art and Interactive Art, and games.  (use of the Scratch videos).
*Group discussion and exploration of the Scratch interface
*Individual exploration (Ex:  Name exercise) supported by the group/facilitator/scratch cards.
*Session reflection.

Any good ideas on initial team building activities. I've always detested team-building activities preferring to get started immediately, but I do recognize their value.

Any further thoughts, suggestions, or more things to consider would be much appreciated

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#2 2007-11-11 18:00:02

kevin_karplus
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-04-27
Posts: 1000+

Re: Forming a school scratch club.....

I have been running a tech club (mainly Scratch) since last January.  I've found that I can't spend more than 5 minutes on group activities---the kids all want to get on the computers and play with their projects.  Your group may be different, but don't count on having much presentation time.  Most of the teaching will happen as kids ask "how can I make my guy do a flip over this other guy?" or "how to I get him to move and talk at the same time?"

I've been running this year with 7 computers (8 counting my laptop) and 8-10 kids each week.  Some of the kids enjoy working together on projects, but you have to let them decide that for themselves.  I started out bringing games or puzzles for kids who couldn't get computers, but they ended up not being used much.

You can see what I've been doing by looking at my weekly newsletter:
http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus/tech_club

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#3 2007-11-11 18:48:09

dehrha02
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-05-18
Posts: 19

Re: Forming a school scratch club.....

So basically to introduce it, you show them some of the cool things Scatch can do and let them go.  Just be ready to have some answers (you or tutorial/reference cards) as they explore the Scratch environment.

Thanks for posting the newsletters, they're fantastic.

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#4 2007-11-11 20:13:02

andresmh
Scratch Team at MIT
Registered: 2007-03-05
Posts: 1000+

Re: Forming a school scratch club.....

Be sure to check Jay and Tammy's video of how they ran a Scratch workshop
http://scratch.mit.edu/videos


Andres Monroy-Hernandez | Scratch Team at the MIT Media Lab
on identi.ca and  twitter

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#5 2007-11-11 22:17:12

dehrha02
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-05-18
Posts: 19

Re: Forming a school scratch club.....

Thanks, I also found some pdf's about computer clubhouse....Amazing work.

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#6 2007-11-11 23:13:23

room209
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-03-17
Posts: 94

Re: Forming a school scratch club.....

We've got an after school club started this year, too.  I invited just my own class to see what the interest level was, and had 20 of them sign up in a day.  We start with a snack and while the kids eat we look at a project or three I've downloaded from the web site.  We run it first in presentation mode, to see if we can figure out how the author did the scripting.  Then the kids happily spend 80 minutes on their own projects or checking up on what others are doing or helping others solve problems... It is great fun to see how they build their own community.

Karen

Karen

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#7 2007-11-12 14:55:25

andresmh
Scratch Team at MIT
Registered: 2007-03-05
Posts: 1000+

Re: Forming a school scratch club.....

I am curious. What is the gender distribution of your clubs?

Chris G. has found that advertising Scratch as a tool to create interactive art and animations tends to attract more females than describing it as a tool to make video games.

What are your strategies to have more equal participation across genders?


Andres Monroy-Hernandez | Scratch Team at the MIT Media Lab
on identi.ca and  twitter

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#8 2007-11-12 16:00:42

kevin_karplus
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-04-27
Posts: 1000+

Re: Forming a school scratch club.....

Gender distribution varies with the sports season (girl's volleyball/basketball or boy's volleyball/basketball).  I have had ratios of up to 5 to 2 in either direction.

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#9 2007-11-12 18:41:21

dehrha02
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-05-18
Posts: 19

Re: Forming a school scratch club.....

Do you market the sessions in any way besides word-of-mouth?

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#10 2007-11-12 19:03:48

kevin_karplus
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-04-27
Posts: 1000+

Re: Forming a school scratch club.....

I post the weekly Tech News on the library window, I announced the Tech Club at the beginning of the year in 4th, 5th, and 6th grade classrooms, and I was one of the many "afterschool providers" who had a table at the Back-to-School night at the beginning of the year.   Since our school is tiny (only 110 kids K-6), everyone knows about Tech Club.

It probably also helps that I'm the only *free* afterschool activity.

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#11 2007-11-12 19:09:32

dehrha02
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-05-18
Posts: 19

Re: Forming a school scratch club.....

It probably helps that it looks really fun....judging by the newsletters.

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#12 2007-11-13 17:00:55

room209
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-03-17
Posts: 94

Re: Forming a school scratch club.....

Hi, now all the kids in our Scratch club are learning how to use the forum.  We will answer Andre's question. 

Tatum says our Scratch club is an even amount of boys and girls.  Oops, now kids are counting to get the exact numbers.  Sam says there are 9 girls and 11 boys.  Wait a minute, now they are having a big argument and doing a recount.  Natalie just lost her count. 

Final count is 12 boys and 9 girls.

Karen asks, would the girls have signed up if it was just for making computer games. 
Most of the girls say that they like 'Scratch so much that it doesn't matter if it is games.  "We are not complete girly girls."  Kate says, "Interactive art would scare me off."

Gregory says most of what he likes about Scratch is devoted to games.  Will says he likes making humorous stories.  Howard says his dad is an artist and just likes art in general.

Karen notes, though, that everyone's project right now is a game.

signing off,
Room209 Scratch Club

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#13 2007-11-26 12:29:09

dehrha02
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-05-18
Posts: 19

Re: Forming a school scratch club.....

Here's the very,very, beginning of my Scratch page......

http://mre-teacher.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/ScratchPage/ScratchPage.html

I have 3 tutorials created with ComicLife for "dialogue", "movement", and the common 1st project "Image Shifting".  I also have a scratch planning storyboard.  If a student wants to draw her background using more conventional supplies she can do it with this and then scan it in.  The area on the PDF has been sized to the scratch background size.  Just click on the image to bring up the PDF.

The website is far from complete, I'm basically getting used to the webhost right now.
Dale

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#14 2007-12-04 14:00:15

chrisg
Scratch Team
Registered: 2007-03-15
Posts: 10

Re: Forming a school scratch club.....

I know I'm coming late to this topic, but hopefully it'll be useful to others starting clubs as well.  I would strongly support Kevin's point about presentation time.  After the first few weeks you won't be able to keep their attention for more than 5 minutes if that as they want to be diving into their own stuff. 

One thing I'm trying this year is having the students who were in Scratch Club last year demo a project.  They have 5 minutes to show the project, explain what the 'idea' was and show a little of the code.  I would have to say that it is having mixed results as some are better presenters than others, but when it works it's nice. Since the club is only 1 hour each week we don't really have time to regroup and show what we've done. Once or twice a semester we plan a 'Demo Day' where all we do is demo - for the first 30 minutes half the group demos their projects and the other half goes around looking at demos, and they they switch roles for the last 30 minutes. (BTW I'm jealous of those of you that have more time.)

I have about 30 returning students from last year, and about 20 new ones.  So one problem I have is how to show the new students some basic features without boring the experienced users. I don't think I did a good job of this at the start of this year, so this year's new students are not as far along as last year's were at this time in the year.

Finally, here are some links to the poster I put up at the beginning of the year to advertise the scratch club.  There are two variations.  The difference is the project featured, one is more abstract, the other could be a story or a game.
http://web.media.mit.edu/~chrisg/scratchclub_a.pdf (http://web.media.mit.edu/~chrisg/scratchclub_a.png)
http://web.media.mit.edu/~chrisg/scratchclub_b.pdf (http://web.media.mit.edu/~chrisg/scratchclub_b.png)

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#15 2007-12-05 08:30:58

kevin_karplus
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-04-27
Posts: 1000+

Re: Forming a school scratch club.....

I have about 90 minutes a week, and fewer kids to supervise (about 9 kids and 7 computers, but not the same 9 each week).  Last year we had the Tech Club demoing their games and animations at Family Science Night.  It was a popular station, and so we'll probably do it again this year.

We don't have any Scratchers this year as prolific as Graham
http://scratch.mit.edu/users/Graham
but I think we'll still have a few things to show.

Once again my son plans to include Scratch programs as part of his science fair project.
We'll see how it goes this year.

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#16 2007-12-05 19:13:17

Vanslar
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-03-17
Posts: 100+

Re: Forming a school scratch club.....

andresmh wrote:

I am curious. What is the gender distribution of your clubs?

Chris G. has found that advertising Scratch as a tool to create interactive art and animations tends to attract more females than describing it as a tool to make video games.

What are your strategies to have more equal participation across genders?

lol i would say you can make cool graphics, interactive art, and games. and when your more advanced... MARIO!


  I am a royal pain in the butt, I am ~Vanslar~       
      Want better gravity? Go to
Realistic Gravity, By Vanslar 2-D
Want a better way to spend your spare time? CubeField

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#17 2007-12-06 11:57:42

chrisg
Scratch Team
Registered: 2007-03-15
Posts: 10

Re: Forming a school scratch club.....

I wanted to add something about gender distribution. 

Last year I found that girls tend to come based on a personal connection.  Once you get a couple of girls interested they tend to start inviting their friends to come and so on. At the beginning of the year (last year) there were only 3 girls in the club, but by the end of the year it was up to 12. Unfortunately this year I haven't been able to grow the number of girls at my club because we're at the limit of our computer resources (50). So I'm still at 12 girls. Some of those are new this year because I lost some of last year's girls to other activities.

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#18 2007-12-06 12:45:18

kevin_karplus
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-04-27
Posts: 1000+

Re: Forming a school scratch club.....

I have more girls than boys in my Tech Club this year!  The numbers vary each week (it is a drop-in group), but of the total list of kids who've come more than once or twice, there are 10 girls out of 16 kids.  The numbers vary a lot depending on whether it is girls basketball season or boys basketball season, as sports practices compete for the time slot.

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#19 2007-12-28 06:00:07

redware
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-05-21
Posts: 92

Re: Forming a school scratch club.....

I have started working on sample projects for our school computer club. The first sample (a game called fish!) is available to you all. Please let me know how if it works in your environment.

http://scratch.mit.edu/forums/viewtopic.php?id=2709

Stamati Crook
http://www.redware.com/scratch

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#20 2008-10-28 19:08:23

SonicStriper123
Scratcher
Registered: 2008-09-23
Posts: 15

Re: Forming a school scratch club.....

<next costume>You Wondering if ScratchDesignStudio is a real user? well some other scratchers might know. But I Don't Know.  sad

        NOTICE: HELP OUT newareagle, As you haven't noticed, he's been gone for quite a while. He wants you yo help him oon his ESCAPE SAGA GAME. Here is the thing you need to go to to make new games. (for new scratchers) (blocks)<next costume><switch to costume[  THANKS!!!  smile  -SonicStriper123

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#21 2008-10-28 19:19:25

archmage
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-05-18
Posts: 1000+

Re: Forming a school scratch club.....

SonicStriper123 wrote:

<next costume>You Wondering if ScratchDesignStudio is a real user? well some other scratchers might know. But I Don't Know.  sad

        NOTICE: HELP OUT newareagle, As you haven't noticed, he's been gone for quite a while. He wants you yo help him on his ESCAPE SAGA GAME. Here is the thing you need to go to to make new games. (for new scratchers) (blocks)<next costume><switch to costume[  THANKS!!!  smile  -SonicStriper123

Newareagle is pretty much done with the new flash version of factory escape. Also, Newareagle is probably not coming back to scratch, something about his newgrounds page tells me that he is preoccupied with flash.
http://areagle.newgrounds.com/


Hi, I am Archmage coder extraordinaire. I do Scratch,pascal,java,php,html, AS2 and AS3. Leave me a message if you want coding advice. Also check out my personal website, lots of good stuff about web development, Flash, and Scratch (v1 and v2) !

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#22 2008-11-13 08:03:35

SonicStriper123
Scratcher
Registered: 2008-09-23
Posts: 15

Re: Forming a school scratch club.....

well, newareagle is done with his game factory saga, and he's probably won't be visiting scratch in a while.  sad

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#23 2008-11-27 08:51:57

smithwilliam1
Scratcher
Registered: 2008-11-27
Posts: 2

Re: Forming a school scratch club.....

sounds really good, but need to be more clear i thing because new one like me, i don't know what are you taking about so please clear me...

thanks
Regards,
[two commercial links removed by moderator Jens]

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#24 2009-02-04 12:05:42

bfeather
Scratcher
Registered: 2008-09-26
Posts: 1

Re: Forming a school scratch club.....

I'm looking for some students who might want to connect with students here in my district to work collaboratively on some projects.  I envision students re-working projects created by students at the other locations(s) and communicating via this forum or a wiki I could create for this project.
Please email me if you are interested in exploring further... bfeather@fusd1.org 

Thank you!

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#25 2009-02-05 13:08:59

funkychic
Scratcher
Registered: 2009-02-05
Posts: 4

Re: Forming a school scratch club.....

kevin_karplus wrote:

I have been running a tech club (mainly Scratch) since last January.  I've found that I can't spend more than 5 minutes on group activities---the kids all want to get on the computers and play with their projects.  Your group may be different, but don't count on having much presentation time.  Most of the teaching will happen as kids ask "how can I make my guy do a flip over this other guy?" or "how to I get him to move and talk at the same time?"

I've been running this year with 7 computers (8 counting my laptop) and 8-10 kids each week.  Some of the kids enjoy working together on projects, but you have to let them decide that for themselves.  I started out bringing games or puzzles for kids who couldn't get computers, but they ended up not being used much.

You can see what I've been doing by looking at my weekly newsletter:
http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus/tech_club

Ithink people should do what your doing in every school bravo to you!

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