“Squeaking” by with “Spritely” Building Blocks of Learning via Scratch
Diana Solomon, Media Specialist/Computer Teacher

 

I was ready for a change, a new direction, an added oomph to my lesson plans in the Media Lab, and along came the Scratch session at GAETC!  Yes, it’s important to teach netiquette, word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation techniques, among other things.  But, give students and teachers a creative outlet that involves ongoing learning in an analytical, synthesizing and evaluative manner while learning how to program, and watch the enthusiasm for computer class hit a new high.  Many of the desired technology literate skills for the 21st century can be found in the Scratch program which is layered atop a computer language called Squeak.  The price and availability is educator friendly:  $.00 and an easy download from http://scratch.mit.edu.

There was never a doubt as to how the lesson plans would be implemented.  Everything is beautifully laid out at the MIT site.  Preparation merely involved a little printing and laminating of instruction cards, along with some forethought for user names and passwords.  This was an excellent opportunity to practice Internet safety and discuss giving out only minimal information and nothing personal.

 

Well, I couldn’t resist touting “the good ole days” of programming to my sixth graders, so I dusted off my GW Basic program (written 15 years ago) to show students how I really did walk up hill both ways to school.  They weren’t impressed, more like relieved that they didn’t have to write line after line of code for so little result.  We made the distinction between machine language and computer language, discussed syntax and semantics in English and made the correlation to programming.  With user names, passwords, and registering out of the way, we began to have a little fun.  A five minute introduction video laid down the overall concept and usefulness of the program at http://scratch.mit.edu/videos.  Oh my, time was up and the hands-on part would have to wait.

 

The next class started out with basic vocabulary:  sprites -objects that Scratch projects are made of, costumes –changes in how a sprite looks, blocks -commands that snap together into stacks called scripts that are double clicked to run the commands, and stage -where the stories, games, and animations come alive.  Students skimmed the Scratch site to find out how it got its name (technique used by hip-hop disc jockeys), what programming language is used (Squeak), and how they could get ideas for projects (other student projects).  After this information was shared, students began following some basic steps that built one upon another from the “getting started” link under support at the Scratch site.  Half a dozen students had already downloaded the program at home and had a head start on what we were doing.

 

The third lesson involved using the Scratch cards, and students began to experiment a little more on their own as they gradually progressed to more complex scripting.  They were challenged to figure out how big the stage is and where to find the exact center in addition to familiarizing themselves with the variety of blocks via the reference guide under support.  Their projects were saved to their memory sticks and to their gallery on the site.

 

One of the many pluses of Scratch is the ability to view other projects and pick them apart to see how they tick.  Students opened other projects from the Scratch site and added the ones that interested them to their gallery.  Then, everyone visited this site for budding computer scientists at http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~malan/scratch/index.php and skimmed it for more detailed information.

 

At this writing, we are still exploring the myriad possibilities and learning from each other.  This is one squeaky wheel that will definitely get oiled and one itch that most assuredly will get scratched when students get hold of this program.  Kudos to Mr. Christopher Michaud for leading this applicable session at the GaETC Conference and for making us more technologically literate!

 

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