Karen Nowicki, 5th Grade Teacher at Springfield Park, saw a TED Talk about SCRATCH and it sparked her interest. I too had just recently learned about SCRATCH at a technology conference in Charlottesville. I liked it so much, that I put in a software request to have it added to all student and teacher machines, and it was approved! Mrs. Nowicki and I are going to introduce the SCRATCH program to her students this week. As a starting point, the students will work through the SCRATCH Task Cards provided at scratch.mit.edu I printed them off, cut them out, folded them in half, and laminated them, so hopefully they will last for multiple classes. Not very tech-y of me, but I think it will be easier for the students to learn how to program code without having to go between multiple windows.

The students will work through as many cards as possible to learn how to manipulate the sprites (or characters) on SCRATCH. Our hope is that students will then be able to transfer this knowledge to create a review game or digital story telling. I can’t wait to see what the kids design! Check back later for their finished products.