Hi, I just heard about Scratch. I teach 6th grade Social Studies. I would like to find a way to use scratch in my classroom. Can anyone tell me where I can get some ideas?
I teach American history, from colonization to the Civil War.
Thanks!
Offline
Well, I'm no teacher, but I guess an Age of Empires type of thing, building up a civilization. It would take time though...
Offline
She has no clue what age of empires bluestribute, and that wouldn't be such a hot idea. You could you scratch to make a computer based quiz or to make a video to teach your students, but scratch doesn't have much use for a social studies class.
Offline
geckofreak wrote:
She has no clue what age of empires bluestribute, and that wouldn't be such a hot idea. You could you scratch to make a computer based quiz or to make a video to teach your students, but scratch doesn't have much use for a social studies class.
exactly, not much Social Studies stuff to do. But I said, Age of Empires where you build a civilization. We played a game like that this year, but in real life. We built an empire, like in Age of Empires. We lost, but we learned.
Anyway, Ahe of Empires is a game where you have to build your civdilization up and attack enemies. that's how we learned about Mesopotamia, kinda
Offline
I am making a civilization thing where you have to provide food and happiness for your civilization. As your population increases, you need to get more food and happiness to keep your civilization happy and well fed. You also have a limit to food and happiness and need to build more storage for them. It should be done quite soon, so if you need to use it, that would be fine to me...
Offline
coolstuff wrote:
I am making a civilization thing where you have to provide food and happiness for your civilization. As your population increases, you need to get more food and happiness to keep your civilization happy and well fed. You also have a limit to food and happiness and need to build more storage for them. It should be done quite soon, so if you need to use it, that would be fine to me...
Like that, but more educational. For example, earning money to buy walls, keeping out enemies. In our interaction game, we got "money" based on what square we landed on, whether it was food, or other resources. Then you got money for that, and money for destroying other armies.
That is the general idea, but make it a scratch game like coolstuff is!
Offline
It would be pretty easy to make an animated and annotated bird's eye view of battles, say of the battle of Gettysburg, showing troop movements, and that sort of thing. That would be an interesting one to do! Picket's charge, The 20th Maine's defense of Little Roundtop...now you've got me fired up and I'm not even much of a History fan!
I did a quick search using keyword "History" and didn't come up with very many projects. But here are a few that might be inspirational:
http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/yogamamajules/46515
http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/goch/82549
http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/grizzledbeard/84766
http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/bmarcell/1693
Last edited by Paddle2See (2008-05-07 19:24:56)
Offline
I think this thread has gone in the wrong direction. If I were making a project to teach history I would make an animation project or a quiz project. I don't think an army sim would be appropriate.
Offline
archmage wrote:
I think this thread has gone in the wrong direction. If I were making a project to teach history I would make an animation project or a quiz project. I don't think an army sim would be appropriate.
Are you saying what I said. This is how our game worked:
Everyone had a clan (I was Phoenician). We got a certain square and certain amount of armies (thumbtacks). We got a limited amount of moves each day to get our resources (Winner was group with most resources). Then we got "coins", which was really just us scribes writing down the amount. Then we got to buy more armies, walls, Ziggaurats, etc. to defend our square. In our class, the Persians lost their square.
And that's what I was talking about
Offline
Bluestribute wrote:
archmage wrote:
I think this thread has gone in the wrong direction. If I were making a project to teach history I would make an animation project or a quiz project. I don't think an army sim would be appropriate.
Are you saying what I said. This is how our game worked:
Everyone had a clan (I was Phoenician). We got a certain square and certain amount of armies (thumbtacks). We got a limited amount of moves each day to get our resources (Winner was group with most resources). Then we got "coins", which was really just us scribes writing down the amount. Then we got to buy more armies, walls, Ziggaurats, etc. to defend our square. In our class, the Persians lost their square.
And that's what I was talking about
That sounds like it would be pretty complicated a require a lot of work. I think the thread starter might want something simpler.
Offline
archmage wrote:
Bluestribute wrote:
archmage wrote:
I think this thread has gone in the wrong direction. If I were making a project to teach history I would make an animation project or a quiz project. I don't think an army sim would be appropriate.
Are you saying what I said. This is how our game worked:
Everyone had a clan (I was Phoenician). We got a certain square and certain amount of armies (thumbtacks). We got a limited amount of moves each day to get our resources (Winner was group with most resources). Then we got "coins", which was really just us scribes writing down the amount. Then we got to buy more armies, walls, Ziggaurats, etc. to defend our square. In our class, the Persians lost their square.
And that's what I was talking aboutThat sounds like it would be pretty complicated a require a lot of work. I think the thread starter might want something simpler.
That's just what we did. It actually could be fairly easy (not easy,though. Fairly...). Just use variables and stuff. I should try it if I have time...
Offline
archmage wrote:
I think this thread has gone in the wrong direction. If I were making a project to teach history I would make an animation project or a quiz project. I don't think an army sim would be appropriate.
I said the same exact thing earlier
Also how is building an Empire and trying to conquer related to american history
Last edited by geckofreak (2008-05-07 19:28:29)
Offline
geckofreak wrote:
archmage wrote:
I think this thread has gone in the wrong direction. If I were making a project to teach history I would make an animation project or a quiz project. I don't think an army sim would be appropriate.
I said the same exact thing earlier
Also how is building an Empire and trying to conquer related to american history
I didn't see the american history part... Whoops
Offline
Thanks for your replies. I would like to be able to make a quiz or some review type t hiing with it. Maybe animated hangman?
Or some kind of thing where you can roll the dice or spin the spinner and move your game piece after you answer a question correctly. Can i do something like that?
Or an animation of King George and the colonists arguing?
Thanks....
Offline
ellenalesa wrote:
Thanks for your replies. I would like to be able to make a quiz or some review type t hiing with it. Maybe animated hangman?
Or some kind of thing where you can roll the dice or spin the spinner and move your game piece after you answer a question correctly. Can i do something like that?
Or an animation of King George and the colonists arguing?
Thanks....
You can
Offline
Here are a few examples of social studies-related projects.
This one is from a class in Canada (I think) where all the kids did research on ancient Mesopotamia, then used Scratch projects to show what they learned.
http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/bcclmb/57989
Then there are the geography map quiz projects like:
http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/bmarcell/1693
I've had students interested in military history who programmed an animation of a battle map, showing where the armies advanced, retreated, or fought.
I've also had students who read about a famous person, then did an animated book report about that person.
It is fun!
Karen
Offline
A lot of teachers have been using scratch in ICT lessons to complete "book reports" about things they have learned in other subjects, so it might be something your class could do too, depending on age.
But you can also make presentations (the same as you might in powerpoint) and quizzes.
I have a heraldry presentation in my gallery - have a look, it might be somethign you can adapt.
I also have a "choose the right answer from 3" style quiz, based on counting coins. Again, the basic structure could be adapted to make a more general quiz about your topic.
Offline
its weird I'm giving suggestions to a teacher when I'm 13, weird... oh well, scratch should be used for animations and other stuff in your case. If you need help with programming contact the local superb scratchers of scratch
these peeps would be:
dingdong (me)
colkadome
archmage
mayhem
S65
oldschooler2
remember these users are teens too and use their skillz for games or highly advanced techniques in scratch, they could make the basics of a quiz in an hour, most everybody can program what you want
I also have a support gallery if you need help, it's just easier to contact me somewhere on my profile
Offline
dingdong wrote:
its weird I'm giving suggestions to a teacher when I'm 13, weird...
That's how it works - we learn from adults, adults learn from us. That's why old teachers are usually better at teaching... ^^
dingdong wrote:
If you need help with programming contact the local superb scratchers of scratch
these peeps would be:
dingdong (me)
colkadome
archmage
mayhem
S65
oldschooler2
Are you sure that recommending other people is completely right? If they wanted to, they would recommend themselves. They might not want to help, or be unavailable or busy now. If you don't get my point, here's a more detailed explaination:
1. By recommending these people, you almost "promise" that they are active and will help.
2. Therefore, you in some ways answer for their actions.
3. And what's more, you reply for them, which often isn't concidered polite, and might even offend someone.
4. As being recommended by you, they must help in order to "confirm" your recommendation.
5. But they might not really want --or be able to-- help.
6. If they answer no, they will put you and themselves down in the eyes of Ellenalesa.
I am sorry if I offended you for some reason, but I was just pointing out that you must be more careful about what you say, especially when mentioning other people.
If you need help with sprites or animation, contact us at TSGU - http://scratch.mit.edu/forums/viewtopic.php?id=2091.
Offline
MyRedNeptune wrote:
Are you sure that recommending other people is completely right? If they wanted to, they would recommend themselves. They might not want to help, or be unavailable or busy now. If you don't get my point, here's a more detailed explaination:
1. By recommending these people, you almost "promise" that they are active and will help.
2. Therefore, you in some ways answer for their actions.
3. And what's more, you reply for them, which often isn't concidered polite, and might even offend someone.
4. As being recommended by you, they must help in order to "confirm" your recommendation.
5. But they might not really want --or be able to-- help.
6. If they answer no, they will put you and themselves down in the eyes of Ellenalesa.
I am sorry if I offended you for some reason, but I was just pointing out that you must be more careful about what you say, especially when mentioning other people.
If you need help with sprites or animation, contact us at TSGU - http://scratch.mit.edu/forums/viewtopic.php?id=2091.
I have to disagree with MyRedNeptune on this one. In my humble opinion, I don't think there is anything wrong with pointing a person with a problem towards other people that are experts in the area in which they are looking for help. However, when refering people, it must be emphasized to the person in need that nobody can speak for another person and it is totally up to the individual "experts" whether or not they want to assist.
Offline
I don't know much about teaching history (though I do know that simplified "civilization" games are now taught in history classes, for some reason), but I'm mainly looking forward to seeing Paddle2See's "The 20th Maine's defense of Little Roundtop" project, which I believe involved catapults and lobsters, though I'm not sure
Last edited by chalkmarrow (2008-05-10 10:50:04)
Offline
chalkmarrow wrote:
I don't know much about teaching history (though I do know that simplified "civilization" games are now taught in history classes, for some reason), but I'm mainly looking forward to seeing Paddle2See's "The 20th Maine's defense of Little Roundtop" project, which I believe involved catapults and lobsters, though I'm not sure
Wow, what a visual! There is no way the 20th Maine would have brought Maine lobsters to Virginia. Maine lobsters like colder water. I'm not sure what to say about the catapults...this was the Civil War, not the Middle Ages. If they were going to fire lobsters at people, they would have used a lobster cannon, of course.
Offline
But if they used a cannon the lobsters would be fried!!! Poor Lobsters
I'm just joking, I love myself some cooked lobster. Lobsters are so good and tasty!! YUMMY!!!
Offline
Paddle2See wrote:
chalkmarrow wrote:
I don't know much about teaching history (though I do know that simplified "civilization" games are now taught in history classes, for some reason), but I'm mainly looking forward to seeing Paddle2See's "The 20th Maine's defense of Little Roundtop" project, which I believe involved catapults and lobsters, though I'm not sure
Wow, what a visual! There is no way the 20th Maine would have brought Maine lobsters to Virginia. Maine lobsters like colder water. I'm not sure what to say about the catapults...this was the Civil War, not the Middle Ages. If they were going to fire lobsters at people, they would have used a lobster cannon, of course.
Ah. You're right. I must have been thinking of a Monty Python skit or something...
I haven't seen a real generalized rpg framework on scratch yet (where you can scan a large area at different zoom levels and command sprites to go to certain locations and take certain actions). That would be useful, perhaps even for teaching history (note the last clause added to prevent the post from being off-topic).
Last edited by chalkmarrow (2008-05-10 17:59:48)
Offline
chalkmarrow wrote:
I haven't seen a real generalized rpg framework on scratch yet (where you can scan a large area at different zoom levels and command sprites to go to certain locations and take certain actions). That would be useful, perhaps even for teaching history (note the last clause added to prevent the post from being off-topic).
Well, I took my Privateer project, took out everything except the scroller and gave it zoom capability. So it's basically a bi-directional scroller engine with wrapping and zoom. I never posted it but I have it if you want to go somewhere with it.
Offline