Scratch@MIT Conference

Wow, where did that summer go?!

Welcome back to the new school year. As ever this year looks to be a series of exciting challenges, just one of which is to spend more time blogging. The advent of Twitter has certainly cut down on my blogging but I'm determined to get back into it this year and help keep our community informed, as well as putting the world of education technology to rights too!

Last week's prep week wasn't quite as productive as I'd hoped largely due to the fact I was late to return after attending the Scratch@MIT event in Boston.

Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is pretty much at the pinnacle of academic technologies and is consistently ranked within the top five universities in the world. Attending a conference at MIT's Media Lab was a great thrill. The Institute has been responsible for LOGO and Scratch, two technologies I have used in schools a huge amount. Indeed, my first experience with LOGO was as a trainee teacher in 1986!

The four day conference gave me the opportunity to look at how others have implemented Scratch within their environments and to receive new ideas about ways in which it could be used in the future. We have been using Scratch since it was first released, initially in our Computer Club, but then within the technology curriculum. On Friday morning I contributed to a presentation looking at ways in which the technology can be moved into the Mathematics curriculum. It seemed to be well received, which was a bonus!

Below is a video put together by the amazing team that were recording the conference.

There were plenty of 'takeaways' from this conference, not least the reassurance that we are on the right track with our use of Scratch. We now need to look at implementing the program within different contexts throughout the school, not just the Mathematics or Technology curriculum. Areas such as language teaching and digital storytelling can also benefit and we need to pursue these this year.

There were a large number of international delegates present from outside the USA and a number of possible future projects were discussed.

Attendance at the conference strengthened my view that Scratch is the best piece of free software that schools can use. In fact, it may just be the best piece of software for education full stop.

Parents often ask me about software they can install at home that will help to develop their children. Well, the simplest answer is Scratch. It hits a number of areas, but crucially can aid problem solving and creative development.

Scratch can be downloaded (at no cost!) here.

Visiting HKFYG HQ

During the Easter holiday I was lucky enough to be invited to a meeting with LEAD (Learning through Engineering Art & Design) at their Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups headquarters in Quarry Bay. Along with Joanna Cheung from LEAD, Jane Harris from CIS and Dr Felicia Tsang (LEAD Project Consultant) we discussed the upcoming World Scratch Day and the Hong Kong event which will take place at the Cyberport on Saturday 16th May.

As can be seen from the agenda I will be sitting on a panel discussion at the end of the day tackling "A New Paradigm of Teaching and Learning". During the meeting we discussed some of the issues surrounding this topic and how we might as a group support teachers in their understanding of how teaching and learning might look in this technology-rich era. It was an extremely interesting meeting as we covered many aspects, including how teachers are learners as well as students these days and how some teachers find that concept difficult to come to terms with. In relation to Scratch we also looked at different formats of assessment and discussed how teachers could use formative assessment within their work.

I'm really looking forward to the day at Cyberport and to meeting teachers from the whole of Hong Kong who have been using Scratch in their classrooms, as well as supporting those who are yet to use it.

In the two meetings I have had with representatives of LEAD I have been extremely impressed by their knowledge and understanding of education technology and it is clear they have been undertaking some fascinating creative projects in HK schools. I'm looking forward to developing our relationship further.

Scratch Seminar

Monday evening saw a number of interested teachers gather at Kellett to share experience and expertise of the programming software, Scratch. Teachers were enthusiastic in sharing what they had done and future collaboration was discussed.

We were lucky enough to have Jane Harris from CIS attend the meeting and it was fascinating to hear her views. Jane has worked extensively in Scratch and presented at MIT's Scratch Conference last summer. She has been working in Maths lessons with groups using the software to investigate aspects of Shape & Space, e.g. tesselation, rotation and transformation. Student understanding of these ideas appear to have improved significantly as a result of her work. This is a clear example of how the 'traditional' curriculum can be taught using aspects of technology and I look forward to trying out some of her ideas here at Kellett.

I have been mightily impressed with the work our Year 6 and 7 students have created this term in Scratch and I'm hoping to extend this further down the school. For students who want to use the computer during the holidays, Scratch is an ideal medium for experimenting and creating. Amzingly, it's completely free and can be downloaded from here.

Those wishing to investigate Scratch further might like to look at the Delicious page we've set up for Scratch. You could always let us know of alternative Scratch resources by adding them in the comments below.

Scratch at Kellett

After two successful modules of work taught at Year 6 and 7 all students have produced a project built in Scratch. Year 7 students have also uploaded their work to the internet and commented on each other's creations.

Next Monday a few HK teachers will meet at Kellett to discuss the use of Scratch in the classroom. This is an exciting opportunity to share expertise and experience and take our use of the software to the next level.

If any HK teachers reading this would like to attend please feel free to do so, just let me know.

Year 7 Scratch

Both Year 6 and 7 have continued to look at the programming language Scratch in the last three weeks. Whilst P6 have begun to look at controlling images of themselves within the Scratch environment, the Year 7s have been considering aspects of computer game design whilst creating simple games that could be played by younger students.

A number of the games are very playable and include important aspects of game design, such as scoring, timers, levels and targets. The study of Scratch not only helps students to understand aspects of Control Technology, it also encourages review and refinement as well as offering a relatively simple path into the world of programming.

Hopefully a few of the games will be available for playing shortly.

Scratching Around

P6 students have begun to use Scratch in their ICT lessons. This brilliant piece of software from MIT is a great learning tool, allowing access to theories of programming as well as creativity.

We have been looking at different ways of learning the software, either progressing through a series of tutorials provided by Learnscratch.org or simply playing with the software and trying things out. Interestingly the results varied between classes with those set the task of investigating through play appearing to have a better understanding of the software than those who were working through the tutorials.

Learn more about this project

However, the tutorials do contain some excellent ideas for extended projects which we will be visiting in the next few weeks.

Scratch is an extremely engaging piece of software, students quickly become immersed in the intricacies and require little in the way of support from the teacher and are at ease with methods of self-support or helping each other out;

"How do you get rid of what you've drawn?"

"Right there."

Another great aspect of Scratch is that it's completely free and downloadable from the MIT website. It's a must have download for all students at the top of KS2 and up (or maybe even younger)

You can download Scratch here.

For those digital immigrants who like me require the security blanket of organised tutorials, LearnScratch is a great place to start.

Scratch

Earlier this year Computer Club had a go at exploring Scratch, a control type programming language that extends upon work started earlier in LOGO and even earlier with Bee Bots.

Now Year 7 are beginning to investigate how the program works, using video tutorials to help them understand the different functions.

One of the great things about Scratch is that it's completely free to use. You can download a copy of the program here.

Room With a View

Here we are in KL... Day Two of the FOBISSEA ICT Conference about to start. Here's the view from my hotel room... pretty nice!

Just watched an excellent presentation on Scratch by Glenn Malcolm from BIS in Hoh Chi Minh. We used Scratch in Computer Club earlier this year and we'll definately be looking at it again in the near future.