Anyone using Scratch at school?

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Permalink Reply by Ruthie Hansen on March 7, 2008 at 10:01am

I've been using Scratch with my sixth grade students this year. I spend about four class periods showing them the basics and having them make simple little applications, using the scratch cards from the scratch website to start. After that each student plans a more complex game and makes it over about eight class periods. The students have really impressed me with their ambitious ideas and complex implementation. Many of their projects are posted to the scratch website, tagged with ucls (school initials):
http://scratch.mit.edu/tags/view/ucls

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on March 7, 2008 at 10:24am

It is pretty amazing what the kids can do. Our 4-6th grade kids have done some great things using Alice, too.

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Permalink Reply by Carl on March 14, 2008 at 9:38am

Currently I teach 7th/8th graders basic computer skills.

I split 9 weeks into halves, 1/2 StarLogo TNG, 1/2 Scratch. I did StarLogo first as its harder, they found Scratch easy after doing StarLogo -- however, some complained about Scratch's lack of features, (StarLogo TNG is 3d and has far more interactive programming blocks).

Carl

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Permalink Reply by JoNelle on March 18, 2008 at 9:02pm

My 5th grade technology classes used SCRATCH in the fall this year. Many were fascinated with it and formed a group that still come to me once per week to work on projects. I wll be presenting what we did in classes and the "club" this summer at the first Scratch conference at MIT. Here is a link that shows how I organized it using Scratch with six 5th grade technology classes. http://isurff5th.wikispaces.com/Scratch+Images
I made six sets of the cards and laminated cards on color-coded construction kept in a verticle file for easy student access. Scratch Sheets (shown in the pictures) were for record keeping and student reflections. We emphasized "variables" for 5th grade science - very helpful for the new science concept/terms. Students included their experiences for language arts on wiki pages. One 5th grade teacher even featured Scratch terms for her spelling-lang arts lessons for the week.

We would love to trade ideas with other students/classes/teachers. I wish I had seen this sooner!

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Permalink Reply by JoNelle on March 18, 2008 at 9:21pm

CORRECTION to the student link above. Please go to: http://isurffer-friends.wikispaces.com/Scratch+Reflection

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Permalink Reply by Rich White on March 19, 2008 at 4:10pm

No sScratch .. but an EToys project here - http://kindlelab.com

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Permalink Reply by DanG on April 3, 2008 at 8:31pm

Just coming back from ACM SIG CSE 2008 in Portland, and spent some time with the Scratch team. I definitely plan to use Scratch in our computer lab / computer clubs coming up where our target is students 9 years to 14 years. They're really liking Alice v2 so far even down into the lower grades. The drag-and-drop statements piece is wonderful and a common link between Alice and Scratch. Squeak / EToys is interesting but with a much steeper learning curve whereas you can more or less turn students loose with Scratch to teach each other after about 15 minutes of demo.

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on April 4, 2008 at 10:00am

The piece that is missing for me, and I've mentioned it here before, is the assessment piece. I really don't want to assess the kids but I want a checklist that shows me they are moving through advanced stages without getting stuck or quitting when it gets too hard. If you develop a skills checklist be sure to let me know---thanks. N

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Permalink Reply by Blanca on April 4, 2008 at 6:12am

Hi!
After piloting another program for a bit on Windows, I found this Scratch on the Internet one day - all I can say is WOW. I would love to build curriculum around it for either one of a variety of core subjects - math, science, tech. If anyone is interested or has mentioned it already count me in! Perhaps we can open up a wiki to create and share..
Blanca

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Permalink Reply by KRandall on April 7, 2008 at 6:25pm

You are on. I put up the beginnings of a Scratch page on this wiki.

I've been working with Scratch in a k-6 school for three years, starting out as one of the beta test sites. I use it as one of the ways kids can show what they've learned, such as doing an animated book report, integrating projects with other subjects. It would be great to collect project ideas on the wiki, plus samples of assignments/rubrics/lesson plans, or anything else.

I know people have done some of this making their own web collections, but I haven't run into a place yet that gathers it all together. If anyone knows if this is already happening somewhere else, chime in.

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Permalink Reply by Crystal Gasell on April 4, 2008 at 6:53am

I used Scratch with my seventh graders this year to create an educational game that teaches a language arts concept. Students started by walking through the tutorials on MITs website. Then, students modified an existing Scratch game in order to get the hang of the functions of the program. Some students used the modified version as a starting point and others created a game from nothing.

When the project was complete, students raved about how much they enjoyed using the technology. They were amazed at how much reading the directions carefully helped them. They also learned about their LA concept. Overall, it was successful. I haven't uploaded any of their games yet to the website, but I will attempt to do that next week.

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Permalink Reply by Louis Fleming on April 17, 2008 at 8:15pm

I am currently using Scratch with my high school media students. They are enjoying the challenge of building games and animations with it.

Wish there were more lesson plans being shared out there.

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