Introduction to Introduction to Scratch!Scratch!

Introduction to Introduction to Scratch!Scratch!

Michelle Venable-FosterMichelle Venable-FosterBarb EricsonBarb EricsonAugust 2014August 2014

Adventures in Animation

What is Scratch?• Scratch is a free programmable

toolkit that enables kids to create their own games, animated stories, and interactive art

• and share their creations with one another over the Internet.

Adventures in Animation

What is Scratch?• Scratch builds on the long tradition

of Logo and LEGO/Logo, but takes advantage of new computational ideas and capabilities to make it easier for kids to get started with programming (lowering the floor) and to extend the range of what kids can create and learn (raising the ceiling).

Adventures in Animation

What is Scratch?• The ultimate goal is to help kids

become fluent with digital media, empowering them to express themselves creatively and make connections to powerful ideas.

Adventures in Animation

What is Scratch?• Scratch 2.0 is built on top of Flash

– It won’t run on apple devices– But ScratchJr will

Scratch 2.0 Features• See http://scratch.mit.edu/overview/ • Cloud-based

– With a version you can install on a computer

• Create your own blocks• Cloning• Use of the camera• Backpack

Adventures in Animation

Adventures in Animation

What is Scratch?• Scratch is being developed by the

Lifelong Kindergarten research group at the MIT Media Lab, in collaboration with KIDS research group at the UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies.

Adventures in Animation

Let’s Get Started!• To Open Scratch go to

http://scratch.mit.edu • Create an account or pre-create

accounts for a workshop

Tips for Workshops• Start with existing projects and have

students add features– Score to the pong game

• Do different types of projects– Art, games, animations, music

• Encourage students to be creative– And to show off what they have created

Adventures in Animation

How to evaluate• Pre and post attitude surveys

– Measure confidence, enjoyment, interest, intent to persist, gender stereotypes

– 5 point Likert scale questions– Open-ended questions: best, thing to change?– http://home.cc.gatech.edu/ice-gt/310

• Pre and post content knowledge assessments– Multiple choice questions– http://home.cc.gatech.edu/ice-gt/311