I am initiating an effort for a community developed textbook on the topic of Scratch. The URL for this effort can be found here:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Scratch
I should note here this has absolutely no affiliation with the Scratch development team, but this is an effort to help organize thoughts about instructional methods using wiki organizational tools.
For those who may not be familiar with Wikibooks, this is a project to create free textbooks for use in educational settings, and it seems like a perfect fit for Scratch.
I've chosen to dual license this effort under both the GFDL and the CC-BY-SA-Attribution license to give this content compatibility with the content produced by the Scratch dev team and to allow you to use ideas from this textbook and still be able to legally upload projects to this website. The GFDL is required by the Wikimedia Foundation and is official project policy at Wikibooks.
This is not a free-for-all wiki here, but an effort to explicitly help design a textbook for learning Scratch. If you have some ideas on what would be good approaches to this topic, please add to this thread or post comments on the website listed above. I am looking for suggested lesson plans, written tutorials, and other ideas that may not even be appropriate for a printed paper version of a textbook. Nearly everything that can be done using HTML can be also done on this website.
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There are some advantages to a printed paper textbook, particularly in schools with draconian net-usage policies and firewalls.
The kids I've taught in Tech Club have all been highly motivated (it was a completely voluntary activity) and have pretty much taught themselves and each other, with only occasional suggestions and debugging help from me. I have had to restrain my urge to lecture (I *am* a professor), and let them explore on their own.
Although all of them are good readers, I don't think any of them have read the reference guide, preferring examples and exploration on their own. Some of them do read this forum though, so I might get corrected on that.
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It is a very common practice for Wikibooks to create a PDF edition that can also be printed in dead-tree format, and some of these PDF editions are also being sold through Lulu Press (at the moment.... due to simply trying to find a good publisher) as a formally printed book. I've also taken Wikibooks content in this PDF format and had a local print shop create a physical, tangible book.
Or perhaps as appealing, an instructor is explicitly licensed (by virtue of the GFDL and CC-BY-SA) to reproduce this content as far and wide as they want to with the district photo copiers. Going to a professional print shop is only to help reduce the cost of paper, printer wear and tear, and ink. In the physical print industry, economies of scale apply stronger than just about any other manufacturing business, and are just as apparent. Quite often 10x the print volume is just 2x the cost, with the reverse just as true.
I would agree a printed book certainly does have its advantages. I was just trying to point out that there is also the option of thinking up ways to present this information in a manner that goes beyond the level of a printed book as well.
I'm also thinking here of the "home school" market (speaking broadly.... and including parents who supplement the educational experience in public schools) to give them some resources on learning this, when they may not even know Computer Science themselves. The existing Scratch learning materials are fine, but I'm suggesting here that perhaps it could be expanded, and this is one approach that could be used.
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