I have just recently be shown Scratch in a workshop and would be very interested to hear of any situations where this program is being used in Special Schools. My school caters for students with an intellectual impairment and between the ages of 6-18. I am currently teaching students aged 15-18. I'm mainly interested in finding educational games that have already been created for the students to use. Given the age of my students age appropriate activities is key... however would be keen to give any feedback to the rest of staff.
Thanks Lauren
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Well, if your talking about games, the math gallery would be good (any games in it), but if your talking about programming and using Scratch, then good luck. I tried to show my friend (who has disabilities) how to use it, and he couldn't figure out how.
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Yeah I'm meaning games that are already created.....programming would be too complex for my students to understand. Thanks for the advice though- had a look at the math gallery and there are two or three games that if I slow down/slightly modify would be ok for some of my students to use. As I am very new to this I am not entirely sure of its potential uses so I guess not entirely sure of what I am specifically after. Is the main aim of this program for people to learn game making skills? If this is the case I'm probably better off using some other programs to create games/templates that meet the educational needs of my students.
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While this is slightly off topic relative to the type of disabilities being discussed in this thread, it is worth mentioning that both Scratch and Alice, because of the extensive use of drag-and-drop and the minimal use of the keyboard, are very suitable for use by students who have very limited use of the arms, hands, and fingers. For example, a student who is capable of operating a power wheelchair with a joystick could probably learn to program well in both Scratch and Alice using the type of mouse pad that you find on many laptop computers.
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ldugg6 wrote:
Yeah I'm meaning games that are already created.....programming would be too complex for my students to understand. Thanks for the advice though- had a look at the math gallery and there are two or three games that if I slow down/slightly modify would be ok for some of my students to use. As I am very new to this I am not entirely sure of its potential uses so I guess not entirely sure of what I am specifically after. Is the main aim of this program for people to learn game making skills? If this is the case I'm probably better off using some other programs to create games/templates that meet the educational needs of my students.
Well, I'm only a kid, but I'm pretty sure it was to teach simple programming skills. But not everyone has to follow that. You can always use other peoples projects to teach kids. And you can also edit them to fit your needs.
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I am very interested in developing programs for students with 'special needs'. See my first attempt 'Spellrite'. I put this up on the web as a 'concept'. If you are interested I can put a version up with much simpler words + sounds etc.
I am still trying to figure out a few things with regard to controlling the input (i.e. identifying spurious input as per hand banging on keyboard!!).
I would love feedback from another teacher as I am only working with one student in a very controlled environment (1:1).
If you want to suggest say 10 words I will find pictures to suit and upload a version for you to try.
Let me know if you are interested.
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I checked out 'Spellrite'....great idea. I was really impressed. I'm going to try it with some of my students this week. It is also a program that some of the younger classes could use.
Some other possible words (thinking of the students that I work with - 15-18years of age): Male, Female, Mum, Dad, Toilet, Danger, Exit, Entry, Police, bus stop, train.
I would be very interested to see the use of prepositions also: e.g., in, out, on,off, under, over, between, behind etc. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the programmes 'Boardmaker" or "Writing with symbols" but they would be perfect for finding appropraite and generic pictures for these. Not sure if they can be imported into Scratch though. We have both programmes at our school so I will give it a try if you'd like.
An extension of your 'spellrite' programme could perhaps be in the identification of words. E.g., one picture on page with three or four words (only one correct). Student would need to click on the correct word before it would go to the next page.... OR.... one word with three or four pictures. Same idea in that student would need to click on the correct picture before it would go to the next page. Not overly familiar with Scratch yet so not sure if it's possible...just a thought!!!!
Keep me posted
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That would be pretty straight forward - in essence, its what my 4 player "coin counting" game does.
It would be fairly easy to modify that engine to ask different questions, just be changing the sprite costumes.
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I am a teacher of students with learning difficulties (age 16-25) and think scratch has a lot of potential. For example you could create bespoke games that include special interests of the users and cause and effect events easily. A while ago I tried to learn Flash to make stuff for my students and it was too difficult, Scratch is much easier. Collaborative work at the smartboard could be interesting as it is easy to change things and try them out in scratch. They type of costume animations I have done would be manageable by many students with learning difficulties. I am waiting for my IT department to try loading scratch at my college so not used it with my students yet.
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Here is some educations game with same GUI in gameframework
http://scratch.mit.edu/galleries/view/27386 - educations games in Gameframeworked
http://scratch.mit.edu/galleries/view/16770 - Math Game Everyone all math game I found in scratch but many is not good enough for education but could be rewrite for that http://scratch.mit.edu/galleries/view/16270 -gochEdutainment goch collection of educations gameshttp://scratch.mit.edu/galleries/view/27087 - Kindergarten games for kindergaten many in not english but could be translate.
I hope this will help
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