Scratch!

I am finally learning about Scratch!  This is something I have wanted to start doing for a while now, so I am very excited.  I am participating in a 6 week long workshop via Google+ and Google Hangouts that is being conducted by the ScratchEd group at MIT and Harvard Universities, the people who created Scratch.

If you don't know what Scratch is, it is a programming language that is very user friendly, because it uses blocks, like puzzle pieces, that you connect to create a script, or program (see example to the right).  This can be used to create video games, but it can also be used to create multimedia presentations, digital artwork, animated cartoons, among other things.  The purpose of this tool is to teach computational thinking to students, and maybe they'll even go on to learn other, more complex programming languages. The Scratch community allows students to see other projects, and even open them up, see how they work and remix them to create their own versions. 

I am so excited to be learning this, so I can teach it to my digital technology students next year.  I have had some limited experience with programming, but I can see that this is fairly easy to learn at least the basics, and depending on their interest, go even farther and learn the more advanced concepts. Of course it is time consuming, and I am as bad as the kids spending too much time on this when I should be doing other things, like housecleaning, or working on my own school work!

I am also loving that I am learning more about Google+ and Google Hangouts, which I knew a little about, but had not spent too much time using those tools.

Here is a sample of my project for the the first week.  There were a couple of other practice assignments, but this one took the longest, although partially because I chose to keep adding things to it. But it is an "about me" presentation after all.  Click on the green flag below to watch my Scratch created presentation. 

If you would like to know more about Scratch, click the Scratch logo below. The video is a couple of years old, but is a good entry level introduction.  Have fun Scratching!