Scratch

Hi there,
I run a couple of small businesses in the UK (one a training and consultancy company, the other a technical bookshop/toyshop that sells educational books and toys and robotics kits.)
I also attend a Quaker meeting ( in Guildford in SURREY in the UK ).
I am occasionally asked to run some of the "children's classes".
A few months ago I ran a couple of classes on robotics which were well received, and I have now been asked to run some computer games programming classes.
The kids that will come will be in the age range 8 to 12 with possibly a few younger ones and a few older ones.
Obviously I can't use some of the advanced computer games programming techniques that I teach in some of our training courses and since I have dabbled with Scratch  I though that it might be a good starting point. Alice looks a bit too difficult to start with and Pippy is to Pythonish (even though I adore Python and have had great fun teaching some fairly "scary" and "somewhat esoteric" Python courses).
Any advice and suggestions would be helpful.
Also if there are any "Scratchers" out there in the UK I would love to hear from you.
If there are any "Scratchy Quakers"  I would love to here from you also.
If you might be interested in bringing some of your children to the classes then also do get in touch with me and I will ask the "elders" of our meeting about how to go about it.
The children's classes are about "having fun", "being aware of the needs of others" and "working together" creatively and in a "togetherly" way.

Thanks Cheddar Girl for your advice ...
Have filled out ScratchED form ...

Thanks SOScratch ... I think that sometimes there is no avoiding hard work to achieve something useful ...  The quest to provide simpler and simpler interfaces to carry out complex tasks may end up stifling creativity ... e.g. the wonderful Microsoft technology and frameworks are fine as long as you are trying to do the kinds of things these frameworks support ... However, as soon as you try to do something that deviates significantly from this life can become very complicated.

I ran an Arduino programming workshop some weeks ago ... many Arduino enthusiasts find that they can build various projects and adapt existing sketches, but, when it comes to trying to build and program something innovative they discover that "real world" programming skills are needed.

Last edited by hieronimus (2010-03-26 13:34:17)