{"id":1697,"date":"2017-11-10T14:04:16","date_gmt":"2017-11-10T19:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.trustyetc.com\/trustyblog\/?p=1697"},"modified":"2017-11-10T14:04:16","modified_gmt":"2017-11-10T19:04:16","slug":"ten-years-of-scratch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.trustyetc.com\/trustyblog\/2017\/11\/10\/ten-years-of-scratch\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten Years of Scratch"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Scratch<\/a><\/p>\n

Ten years ago, I was teaching a multimedia graduate class in which we were looking at different multimedia environments that could be used to develop educational content. \u00a0The course culminated with an Adobe Flash project, but we explored other applications along the way.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of those applications was Scratch and <\/span>I wrote about it<\/span><\/a> back then. \u00a0At the time, Scratch was a program that was downloaded and used offline. \u00a0Finished projects could be uploaded to the web site for sharing. \u00a0You could also download projects from the website and remix them using the desktop application. \u00a0About four years ago, the Scratch programming environment went online. \u00a0Since that time you can do all your coding using only a browser at <\/span>https:\/\/scratch.mit.edu<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are several things about Scratch that make it an excellent place to learn to code. \u00a0One of the most important is the price. \u00a0Scratch is completely free. \u00a0There is no required software installation because everything is done in a browser. \u00a0If you can get online, you have full access to all the features in Scratch. \u00a0If you do not have Internet access, you can still <\/span>download the application<\/span><\/a> and do the same activities offline. \u00a0Anything created with the application can be uploaded to the website when you do get online.<\/span><\/p>\n

Students can be successful with Scratch right away. \u00a0Scratch has a section called <\/span>tips<\/span><\/a> with tutorials and PDF guides. \u00a0There are thousands of Scratch tutorials on <\/span>YouTube<\/span><\/a>. \u00a0A student can start with a <\/span>guide that introduces the programming environment<\/span><\/a>, shows how to create content and share that work with others online. \u00a0Students can create and publish simple projects in one class period. \u00a0Last year, my wife and I worked with a group of elementary students at her school. \u00a0We developed an activity where participants created a game. \u00a0It was a simple game where the player moves an object along a path to a \u201ctreasure\u201d at the end of the path. \u00a0Touching the treasure wins the game. \u00a0By adding a timer, it became a game where users could compete for the best time. \u00a0We had a computer lab full of kids and they created their own game in one hour. \u00a0It was a simple project with detailed instructions, but every student who wanted to complete it did so. \u00a0Some of the excited kids came back the next day and told my wife they had worked on their game at home and added extra features.<\/span><\/p>\n

The ability to share projects with other people is one of the most powerful features of Scratch. \u00a0This has two advantages. \u00a0A student can make a project with a specific target audience and then share that project with that audience. \u00a0For instance, a student can make a <\/span>birthday card for grandma<\/span><\/a> and then send grandma the link. \u00a0All grandma needs is a browser and she can see the card and hear her granddaughter talking. \u00a0More importantly, since all projects are \u201copen\u201d to all users, a student can look at all the code from any project to learn how specific programming problems can be solved. \u00a0A student can take any existing project and \u201cremix\u201d it to make something new. \u00a0Consider this <\/span>Origami project<\/span><\/a>. \u00a0It has been remixed more than 3000 times. If you look at the <\/span>remixtree<\/span><\/a>, you will see that the Origami project is actually a remix of another project.<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, Scratch is powerful. \u00a0You can program anything from a game of <\/span>checkers<\/span><\/a> to a fully functional <\/span>flight simulator<\/span><\/a>. \u00a0The graphics editor has both bitmap and vector editing capabilities. \u00a0If you want to import graphics from an advanced program like Illustrator or Photoshop, you can do that too. \u00a0You can also generate graphics as part of the programming, as in this <\/span>SpiroGraph<\/span><\/a> project.<\/span><\/p>\n

Each year, we participate in the <\/span>Hour of Code<\/span><\/a> project. \u00a0Some of our students program with Scratch during the hour of code using activities shared on the site. \u00a0This year, some of our high school students are creating activities in Scratch that can be used by younger students during the hour of code. \u00a0A project like this permits us to use Scratch at every level. \u00a0Older students create Scratch modules that younger students can use to make new Scratch projects.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you have an idea for a project, you can probably find something similar to use as a starting point. \u00a0I found this <\/span>Asteroids game<\/span><\/a> and used some of the spaceship navigational controls in my own version of the game. \u00a0I called it <\/span>Ionoids<\/span><\/a>. \u00a0Different ions are randomly generated and you must \u201cshoot\u201d them with the proper ionic charge to destroy them. \u00a0All of the graphics were created in Scratch. \u00a0I shared it with students who tested it and made suggestions on improvements. \u00a0The finished product is used by the science teachers as a fun way to help the students memorize the common charges for ions. \u00a0Scratch gave me an environment that I could use to quickly create this project. \u00a0I don\u2019t think I could have done it without Scratch.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now if you Google \u201cionoids\u201d, my project is the first thing you see.<\/span><\/p>\n

All my projects are here.<\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/scratch.mit.edu\/users\/trusty\/projects<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ten years ago, I was teaching a multimedia graduate class in which we were looking at different multimedia environments that could be used to develop educational content. \u00a0The course culminated with an Adobe Flash project, but we explored other applications … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,10],"tags":[340,371,272,281],"class_list":["post-1697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-edtech","category-education","tag-education","tag-hour-of-code","tag-programming","tag-scratch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trustyetc.com\/trustyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trustyetc.com\/trustyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trustyetc.com\/trustyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trustyetc.com\/trustyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trustyetc.com\/trustyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1697"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.trustyetc.com\/trustyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1700,"href":"https:\/\/www.trustyetc.com\/trustyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1697\/revisions\/1700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trustyetc.com\/trustyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trustyetc.com\/trustyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trustyetc.com\/trustyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}