Reflections on Scratch
2 06 2008
As I have mentioned before, one of Mr. Brookins reading classes worked with a programming language called Scratch. The students wrote a narrative for Mr. Brookins and were asked to make a storyboard based on that narrative. The storyboard was then used to create an animation and game using Scratch. The program is not easy to learn and in the end, the students just did not have enough time to complete this project during the time we had allotted. So, we decided to make it an extra credit project.
That does not mean we were not happy with the outcomes. Some of the students did a lot of amazing work. If you click on the image above, you will be taken to one of the games. Or, to see some more of the stories and games, check out the student gallery. As a lot of students found out, programming requires you to almost over think what you are doing. You have to tell the program everything you want it to do. It does not just happen automatically. If you want something to “show”, you need to tell that object to “show”. If nothing else, I hope the students learned that you can do some pretty amazing things with the computer other than look for music and pictures. You can still download Scratch from my blog, and it would be a great program for the students to work with over the summer…on a rainy day that is.