Link to my Scratch Project:
Resnick et. al., (2009) write that there are three core
design principles for Scratch that make it substantially different from
programming programs from the past.
These design principles include that Scratch is social, tinkerable and more
meaningful. In this blog I hope to
address the ways that these design principles played out in the making of my
Scratch Project.
Mitchel Resnick et. al., (2009) have called Scratch “the
YouTube of interactive media”. (pg. 60)
This idea of having an audience for the things that we “make” has always
interested me and I think it is an important aspect to motivate children. When I taught kindergarten I used to have
students write in their journals daily, sometimes they wrote in structured
small groups, sometimes independently and also one-on-one in conferences. After
two years, the literacy coach wanted to know exactly how I was teaching
writing, as my students were consistently more advanced in writing than the
other kindergarteners. After carefully
examining my writing practices, she determined that there were two big
differences from my room to the others.
The first was that my students wrote more frequently. Secondly, and
significantly here, my students understood that they were going to share their
writing pieces. We shared our writing
daily, and in a more formal writing celebration once a month. My students always knew that they were
writing for an audience and that it was something we would discuss socially as
a class. The coach and I both thought
this “social/sharing” aspect of writing was very important in inspiring my
students to take great pride in their final products and invest more time into
the process of writing. In thinking about different programing environments,
the fact that Scratch is “social” and can be shared with an online community
could mean that the Scratch programmers work harder to make sure that their
products are worthy of this community.
This was the case for my Scratch project entitled, “Fortunes, Where are you?” My project is about a girl trying to catch
her horse, so that they can go for a ride.
But the horse decides to run from the owner, until finally the girl
tires of the chase and sits down and the horse comes right to her. If I had been making this project knowing
that no one would see it, I think I may have been satisfied with my first or
second version of the movie. I decided
to include two sprites in my production; this meant that the timing between the
two scripts had to be tinkered with again and again so that their interactions
would line up. This took great amounts
of time and lots of trial and error in my novice standing. Would I have persisted if I had thought that
it was just for my own practice? I think
not. The sharing/social aspect pushed me
to tinker and adapt in greater and greater detail to ensure that the final
product was not a disaster. I had to tinker quite a bit with getting the
sprites to return to their original positions each time the production
began. This was hard for me to figure
out on my own and ultimately I looked to social media to figure it out. The tinkering and social aspects seemed to be
connected and intertwined a bit for me.
This was my first experience programming. In the past, I have been a consumer of
digital information, not a producer.
Resnick et. al, (2009) suggest that, “as we see it, digital fluency
requires not just the ability to chat, browse, and interact but also the ability
to design, create and invent with new media.” (pg. 62) So, obviously it is time
for me to cross-deeper into the realm of digital fluency. When I began with this Scratch project, I
felt like a fish out of water. I began by watching numerous YouTube videos. I made some very simple projects with the
cat, Scratchy, within heavily supported tutorials. I was proud that I had
persisted and created a Scratchy project, but Scratchy wasn’t personally
meaningful to me. After I messed around
a bit, I decided that I wanted to make a project that was more meaningful to
me. One of the core design principles
for Scratch is that they wanted to make it meaningful because the creators
understand, “people learn best, and enjoy most, when working on personally
meaningful projects.” (Resnick, et. al., pg. 84) This seemed to be the case with me. I am into
equestrian pursuits; therefore making a project about a horse was meaningful to
me. I was thinking about how sometimes it’s easy to catch my daughter’s horse
(Fortunes) but other days she runs from us, and makes us chase her a bit. This was the inspiration for my project.
I found this really fun.
I continued to tinker with it over the course of a couple days. I’d sleep on it and get up the next day,
watch it again, fix something, and tinker some more. Finally, when I was happy with the product I
hit the share button! In Resnick et.
al., (2009) they write that Seymour Papert argued that programming language
should have a “low floor” (easy to get started) and a “high ceiling” (opportunities
to create increasing complex projects over time). In addition, languages need “wide walls”
(support for many different types of projects so people with many different interests
and learning styles can all become engaged). (pg. 63) My experience with Scratch
demonstrates that the designers of Scratch were successful with creating low
floors, wide walls, and high ceilings.
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