<play sound[ I have been working with Scratch for 5 months now (learning while I go). I am a technology teacher at a 900 student elementary school in South Carolina. My third graders were completely intrigued by some of the things my older students were doing, so I tried it with my third grade classes . They jumped right in and did a name project-- adding sound, movement and effects. I have mixed ability children including children with learning disabilities. You should have heard the neurons clicking as their brains went into overdrive. I video taped their comments as they exclaimed their opinions and excitement about it.
Just thought I would share my glee and their glee.
(I am trying to find a way past our server to upload their projects. You know how schools can be. Sometimes we are limited in what we can do.
Sharon N
oops, there isn't any sound on this post. I was just playing around.
Last edited by neffs (2008-01-31 14:01:37)
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neffs wrote:
They jumped right in and did a name project-- adding sound, movement and effects. I have mixed ability children including children with learning disabilities. You should have heard the neurons clicking as their brains went into overdrive. I video taped their comments as they exclaimed their opinions and excitement about it.
Just thought I would share my glee and their glee.
(I am trying to find a way past our server to upload their projects. You know how schools can be. Sometimes we are limited in what we can do.
Amazing. I love your learningprocess-description, all teachers are seeking those moments when neurons are clicking. Lovely!
Just crazy... schools are limited by the providers of technology. I stumbled on the same problems. The techguys want to stay in charge, and the educators trying to find workarounds... By the way... It would be great the see some of the videocomments from your pupils.
Best regards,
Anders
Sweden
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SmeAnd wrote:
Just crazy... schools are limited by the providers of technology. I stumbled on the same problems. The techguys want to stay in charge, and the educators trying to find workarounds...
Actually, it is rarely the tech guys who are demanding the draconian firewalls and filters—they are terrible nuisance to maintain and get in the way of all sorts of things the tech guys like. The demand nearly always comes from administrators or parent who are afraid that kids might see something inappropriate or be contacted by a pedophile. (Never mind that the vast majority of child abuse is by people already well known to the kids, such as family members, not strangers.)
Blame this one on the fear of litigation or on media hype of rare events, but not on the tech guys!
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Glee is a good word for it. It takes direct witnessing to get the magic of it and then you just have to share it. Your colleagues give you that patient, "Yes, that's lovely," smile when you try to explain.
Congratulations on the clicking!
Karen
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That's awesome! I started programming when I was 8 years old, but I remember it "made sense" before that age. Scratch is much more intuitive than BASIC was on a TRS-80 Model 100 back then, so I'd think 3 and 4 year olds would even do really well with a lot of elements.
It would be cool to see some of the videocomments from your class, if you are able to get permission for that.
I am VERY interested in the combination of Scratch and special needs students, Sharon. Would you be able to describe more how their programming experience goes?
David
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I agree with Kevvin. I spend a good bit of time with my children discussing Internet safety, cyber bullying amd making ethical and moral choices while using computers system. As teachers and parents it is our responsibility to teach children about making appropriate choices in the real world and in our cyber world. Wiki's are blocked in general at our school and this gave me a perfect example of the consequences of inappropriate use of computer systems. I found the comment page on Scratch to be a perfect place to discuss cyberbullying. (Not that we saw any, but we did watch one very nice litte project that had a few hurtful comments.)
PS. Thanks for commenting!
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also, we kids that actually know about firewalls can generally get past them if we really want to. my school is really strict about it, and i dont want to get suspended, but it really isnt that hard...
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