Ben B.
Computing Showcase Website
Scratch and Scratch Jr
Scratch is a programming language developed by MIT with the purpose of preparing the next generation of programmers with the skills to do their craft. It is a very easily accessible and intivutive interface, with surprisingly complicated applications. I was lucky enough to attend a training session on Scratch during the course of my GPP placement and learnt lots about its potential applications and the different ways to teach children about its use and how to write programs.
Scratch features a large array of interconnectable, drag-and-drop control blocks, all of which are on puzzle pieces, intricately linkable to create the discrete lines of code in a programme. Scratch can have multiple algorithms stacked to product elaborate programs. The interface allows creation of multiple, repeating lines of code which depend on one another to function effectively, including the ability to broadcast variables and the like. Furthermore, the Scratch engine can draw complex geometry to allow 3D gaming - the website features some fantastic examples of this being used.
The video to the left showcases Scratch's capabilties as an animation program and as a discrete coding interface. The limits to the program and language appear to be only in generating highly sophisticated applications meaning that it is ideal for use in the primary classroom.
In my experience, children have very much enjoyed using Scratch to produce their own programs as well as following lesson directions to produce a desired end product.
Unfortunately my GPP placement school hired a specialist in to teach their computing lessons, meaning that I was unable to apply my own skills from the training session. However I was able to practise using Scratch alongside the children discovering its highly complex, yet intuitive and non-overwhelming interface. With my exploration, I was able to guide higher attaining children in creating more innovative programs.
I created with the children: animated christmas cards using the scratch coding and sprites, a short racing game with crash detection and scoring and short animations using the code to induce movement in my characters.
Scratch also has a further, simpler interface for younger children called Scratch Jrs which allows children to produce sets of instructions for characters, represented as sprites to tell stories. It hinges its main learning ideas behind the creation of instruction sets (algorithms) for these sprites on the screen, ensuring that the instructions make sense.
I have not yet seen this in use in the classroom, although it was in use in a placement school and installed on the iPads in the EYFS unit, with an eye to introducing it to the children at a later time in the school year. I hope to attempt to use it in my Final Placement classroom as a way of teaching Computing to Year 1.
