Scratch
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#26 2008-09-19 15:18:10
- Paddle2See
- Scratch Team
- Registered: 2007-10-27
- Posts: 1000+
Re: Harvard Professor's scratch homework assignment
xyzabc wrote:
Before the start of this quarter, I went through the tutorials in learnscratch.org. It is a great site and I really want to thank the people who have put together the site. From this site, I got the idea of teaching blocks one at a time. I then created my own lessons and worksheets for my class. Now my class is divided into three sessions :20 mins of lecture/demo, 20mins of practice with worksheets and 5 to 10 minutes of free time in which the kids can play around in Scratch. Kids love the learning time and the playing time. Most of them take their lessons to a next level during the play time and explore on their own, which is the primary goal of Scratch. The kids are learning the blocks now. They will start doing projects after a month. This approach seems to give them more confidence in approaching a problem.
Hey xyzabc -
I find your Scratch teaching experiences fascinating as I am in the (very preliminary) process of structuring an after-school program myself. Thank you for sharing your experience; it is certainly food for thought. I was wondering if you would also consider sharing your lesson plans and worksheets; if they are online? I, and probably others, would probably learn a lot from your hard-won knowledge.
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#27 2008-09-19 22:46:14
Re: Harvard Professor's scratch homework assignment
Jens wrote:
But let me ask you this: Would those children who have difficulties grasping control structures in Scratch even as you explain them benefit from switching to a "serious", text-based programming language earlier?
Going off on a slight tangent...I think people who have difficulty in Scratch itself - and it's not just children, because I learnt and have assisted teaching with Scratch in a college environment and seen similar problems - could really benefit from some kind of hardware interface through which to relate their experiences.
For some children, I can see even moving to Scratch as being either overly complex or, in their minds, unrewarding. I certainly, at the age of 7 or 8, related far more to the robotic turtle than the white triangle on the screen, even though it was through the latter that one could produce graphics and programs of real complexity quickly and simply. One could argue that computers have become increasingly advanced, and can provide far more stimulating visual feedback than Logo could at the time, but this is offset by the fact that so can other, non-programatic or educational software.
This hardware model doesn't translate well to Scratch, at least at the moment. It would certainly be interesting, however, to investigate ways in which the satisfaction of not just accomplishing something on the computer screen but in the real, physical world could be achieved. I don't know whether this be through something such as the Pico Circket, or the Board, or even some yet to be created solutions by educators themselves. It's just a thought.
Last edited by lxt (2008-09-19 22:56:58)
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#29 2008-09-20 13:42:54
Re: Harvard Professor's scratch homework assignment
Jens wrote:
I am, of course, quite aware, that this is not how school is working. Scratch might suffer the same fate in school courses that happens to a thought-provoking novel or to a classical symphony once turned into a school subject. Instead of experiencing profoundly disturbing "direct emotional access" students will mostly be bored by listening to an opera in school or by having to read and discuss a prized novel.
While music is everyone's own experience, we cannot forget that, it is the schools that teach the children how to read, in the first place.
My challenge is in keeping the kids as enthusiastic as they are in the first class. For this the play time helps. I tell them to explore the blocks and use the help that comes with Scratch. All kids enjoy this time and find new things to share with their classmates and me.
Jens wrote:
But let me ask you this: Would those children who have difficulties grasping control structures in Scratch even as you explain them benefit from switching to a "serious", text-based programming language earlier?
I don't know yet as to when the kids can switch to a "serious" text-based programming language. This quarter I'm explaining the control structures with various examples and go over them again. I'm planning to complete the lessons on blocks in the first quarter. In the second quarter, the kids will be grouped in pairs and will be given a theme for a project. They will work on it for two to three weeks and give presentation. They will work on two or three themed projects like this. I think working on the projects will give them a deeper understanding and will give them the confidence to try projects on their own. I've strongly suggested the students to enroll for at least two quarters.
I'm planning to extend it for one more quarter for those who are interested to do even more. In the third quarter, those who join can choose their own theme and will work on a single project for the entire quarter. I have to wait and see how all these goes.
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#30 2008-09-20 14:08:04
Re: Harvard Professor's scratch homework assignment
Paddle2See wrote:
Hey xyzabc -
I find your Scratch teaching experiences fascinating as I am in the (very preliminary) process of structuring an after-school program myself. Thank you for sharing your experience; it is certainly food for thought. I was wondering if you would also consider sharing your lesson plans and worksheets; if they are online? I, and probably others, would probably learn a lot from your hard-won knowledge.
I'm also in a very preliminary stage myself. I have soft copies of worksheets but write down the lesson plans in a paper just prior to the class. I don't have the worksheets online. If there is a site where I can share these, I would like to do so and get comments from other instructors.
I remember Mitchel Resnick talk about creating a site called Scratch Ed for educators, in one of his keynote addresses in the Scratch conference. Is there any site like that?
Thanks.
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#31 2008-09-20 22:27:52
Re: Harvard Professor's scratch homework assignment
If I may enter here... I've offered this a few other times on the forum, but it is worth repeating this new school year. Until the Scratch Ed site is operational, try posting your papers at this Classroom2.0 wiki collection of Scratch materials.
http://wiki.classroom20.com/Scratch
Karen
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#32 2008-09-21 07:08:15
Re: Harvard Professor's scratch homework assignment
xyzabc wrote:
I remember Mitchel Resnick talk about creating a site called Scratch Ed for educators, in one of his keynote addresses in the Scratch conference. Is there any site like that?
Thanks.
We're actively working on Scratch-Ed. There's some information at http://scratch-ed.org/ - which includes an email address for learning more about it or subscribing for launch updates.
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#34 2008-10-05 21:18:24
Re: Harvard Professor's scratch homework assignment
Hi everyone and thanks for the interesting and usefull discussion.
I have just moved to a new school, where they asked me to work with 13-14 years old children. "Just do some computer stuff with them". I decided to try and teach some programming basics, as well as let them enjoy some meanningfull playing time.
Scratch was suggested by the local Teachers Forum, and I accepted it.
Three 2-hours lessons have passed, and so far I used every first hour to introduce Object-Oriented thinking, and every second hour to allow them Scratching individually.
I'm still a novice at Scratch, so I cannot really TEACH it yet, but the kids seem to exceptionally enjoy exploring its functionalities, asking few questions, showing me what they've done and move on trying new features.
The question I'm here to ask - is Scratch a fine tool to teach OOP basics? Although it use Objects at its very core - those Sprites - I'm not convinced the focus here is not on Algorithms and Procedural Programming. Can that interfere my Objects-First approach?
Would be nice to here one's suggestions about that.
Thanks.
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#35 2008-10-25 22:30:12
- kidslikeinfo
- Scratcher
- Registered: 2008-09-03
- Posts: 9
Re: Harvard Professor's scratch homework assignment
xyzabc,
have you posted your lesson plans yet?
please let us know when you have.
please also feel free to post them at
http://kidslike.info/
You can post the entire lessons as pages on kidslike.info, and then they will be searchable on Google.
I'd like to add it to our list of the best resources for teaching Scratch. This is the most popular page on our site.
http://www.kidslike.info/scratch_computer_programming_tutorials
Last edited by kidslikeinfo (2008-10-25 22:48:23)
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#36 2008-12-12 21:31:35
Re: Harvard Professor's scratch homework assignment
arnoldc wrote:
The question I'm here to ask - is Scratch a fine tool to teach OOP basics? Although it use Objects at its very core - those Sprites - I'm not convinced the focus here is not on Algorithms and Procedural Programming. Can that interfere my Objects-First approach?
Would be nice to here one's suggestions about that.
I'm not sure. I was discussing this with someone a few nights ago. Whilst I know some people do like to consider Scratch a good OOP primer, I'd disagree. The sprites aren't really objects, in the CS sense (and I'm not saying they should be).
The 'basics' of OOP in my mind are concepts such as instantiation, classes, etc. - stuff that doesn't really exist in Scratch. That's why you see a lot of projects that copy/paste a lot of code across sprites when what they really need is a class.
Last edited by lxt (2008-12-12 21:33:11)
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