Exploring Scratch - Whys and Hows?

Exploring Scratch - Whys and Hows?
Date: 26/07/18 -Thursday

This blog post is simply inspired from my recent dive into Scratch. I have never been fond of programming and have always found it extremely boring and complicated. It was my recent experience of working in Scratch that helped change the initial thoughts. This blog post explores the whys and hows of introducing Scratch in schools, in  academy's , at home or in any other formal/informal settings. 

Scratch is a programming language , developed by the Life Long Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. It is designed for kids aged between 8 - 16 years but anyone can use it. A colorful and easy to use interface, easy accessibility, ease of sharing in an online community, trial and error opportunity, interactivity , availability of help tutorials and much more has made it a favorite of people of all ages. It is used in more than 150 countries and is available in 40 languages.

My first program in Scratch was to move the sprite (any object in Scratch is called A Sprite) move back and forth on the screen. The first step was to drag the a block of code from the Scripts section and move the sprite 10 steps forward. Second step was to drag a block of code from the sound section and snap it with the move block. Third step was to insert another block of code from the motion block and change steps to -10 (enabling the sprite to move back to original position). Fourth step is to drag a repeat block from the control section and snap around the whole code. In the last step an event When Clicked was added, so that when the green flag is clicked, the whole program will be executed. 

What I learnt from the first experience was that you do not need to remember the code but whats important is to understand the meaning of the code. The code has to follow a logical sequence. There are different colored blocks of code which can be easily dragged and snapped with other pieces of codes. Second you can either insert sound from the sound library or even record a sound or add from your computer. There is a huge library of sprite available related to almost every area of life and you can easily insert in your program. Third you can insert backgrounds too from the library. Fourth you can download and save the program to your computer.

Second program I tried in Scratch was creating a racing game between two sprites (any objects, can be cars/animals etc). The same process was repeated beginning with adding blocks of code from the script area, inserting sound, backgrounds etc and trying/testing the program. What I learnt from this experience was that you can draw your own sprites using the paint brush icon too. In case a sprite is not needed, it can be removed using the scissor icon. Whats more important is that you can also change values in the code and can see that the behavior of the sprite changes immediately. You can try creating your own code of block too which gives the novice programmer a lot of flexibility for trying out new ideas and opens doors for creativity too.

Third program I tried in Scratch was  creating a Catch game, where different sprites (objects like balls, apples etc) fall from the sky and are caught in a bowl, and there is a scoreboard which show the total sprites caught, works like a  counter. The same process was repeated. What I learnt from this experience was that the same code written for one sprite can be duplicated using a duplicate button and you do not need to write  the entire code again for a similar sprite. A huge relief. Second, you can also increase or decrease the size of the sprite using a grow button. Third, it helped understands the  purpose of using variables in programming, they are used to store data, which is not constant and keeps on changing. Using the Data block in Scratch, you can create your own variables to store data.

It was important to share details of my experience with Scratch to give you all a little insight into how powerful this tool actually is and the amazing projects you could create with this tool starting from creating games, interactive stories, animations, animated cards, make music, create simulations, create art work and much more. Second the tool could be integrated in any curriculum area whether Maths, Computer Science, Language Arts and Social Studies. Students can create sound books in Scratch, make read aloud books, explore mathematical concepts for example draw a coordinate plane in scratch and move the sprites across the plane to understand the cartesian coordinates, make calculation games, they can create a digital collage to honor the accomplishments of any historical figure, design repeated patterns in Scratch and much more. 

There is a complete Scratch Art guide available which takes you through the process of creating bitmap , vector, polyart and blockshading with Scratch (details in link below). ScratchEd is a an online community where you could find dozens of resources that could help you design amazing projects with Scratch and also connect with educators around the globe who are using Scratch. You can also join online Scratch educator meets ups, share and discuss ideas with fellow educators.

Mitch Resnik of MIT Media Lab considers coding an important part of literacy in today's society. He further adds that learning coding will help kids learn different skills that include collaboration, communicating ideas, problem solving and designing projects.  While skimming through online articles about the importance of coding for kids, I came across an article by Ryan who talks about 9 various reasons why kids and teens should learn to code, he talks about great opportunity for creativity leading to developing own games, websites and apps, helps understand the world around  them (the technology they are using, how is it designed and how does it work), also that it teaches persistence to kids (while coding they make mistakes and try again and again to correct the errors), it helps improve communication etc.

I completely agree with all of these skills learnt during the process of coding and have actually seen this while I was trying various progams in Scratch and also when my kids at Ranaa Child Welfare Foundation were trying to create their own games. I found them thoroughly engaged and involved, there were signs of language improvement, learning new vocabulary, trying out new ideas, collaborating with each other and testing their assumptions. 

Though this is just the beginning I see a huge impact of introducing Scratch in Schools or Colleges, or even at home. Students will not only end up learning another language but will also be learning many other skills that are needed to thrive in the 21st century i.e creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and communication in  a fun and engaging way.

Your turn to explore & play around with Scratch :) I am sure you and your kids will enjoy the experience.

Enjoy Reading till my next blog soon :)

Thank you as always.

Regards and prayers

Sheeba Ajmal

References

1.  Scratch https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/editor/?tip_bar=home
Accessed Online 24th July 2018

2.   Scratch Across Every Subject - Maths http://scratched.gse.harvard.edu/resources/scratch-every-subject-math Accessed Online 26th July 2018

3. ScratchEd http://scratched.gse.harvard.edu/
Accessed Online 26th July 2018

4 Demonstrating Understanding with Scratch Collage - http://scratched.gse.harvard.edu/resources/demonstrate-understanding-scratch-collage
Accessed Online 26th July 2018

5. The Scratch Art Guide https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/117587720/
Accessed Online 26th July 2018

6. Scratch Cross Curricular Integration Guide http://scratched.gse.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/scratch_crosscurricular_integration_guide_0.pdf
Accessed Online 26th July 2018

7. 9 Reasons - Why kids & teens should code? https://www.idtech.com/blog/5-reasons-your-child-should-learn-to-code
Accessed Online 26th July 2018