This week we were given an easy task to do on “Scratch.” The small programs that we are designing should be simple enough for a fourth grader to complete. At the same time, it can be more complex depending on how much detail the programmer wants to add. For example, my partner and I designed a “Scratch” project where the animation can change its costume. At first, the basic outline of our project focused on having two identical sprites with the same costume with 0.5 seconds between the switch. But then we wanted to make it more complicated by adding more details. For example, we added an extra costume change and actually designed the costumes ourselves. Then we wanted our “Scratch” project to have even more details by adding sound right before the change. One of our sounds came from “Scratch” while the other we recorded ourselves. We decided not to add any more details because we did not want to overwhelm the students who would eventually learn how to create this.
I learned that in “Scratch” it is best to first develop an outline and then slowly add more details. It's also easier if you run the program multiple times when you add an extra detail to your project because it helps you stay more organized. My favorite thing so far is how creative I can be in OLPC. I can be extremely creative in “Scratch” because I have to find the best and simplest ways to design programs. It is fun to develop new ways to improve my code to help younger kids understand. I also can be very creative in the way I teach little children. I try to make fun analogies and pose specific questions that will help guide toward understanding new concepts. The thing I will remember for a long time from OLPC, is the wonderful feeling I got when I helped teach the 4th graders. It brought me joy to see how happy the kids were and it was amazing to see how differently each child thought when you give them freedom to design whatever they want. When children are young, their imagination is wild and it's wonderful to see them come to life on “Scratch”!
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In class, we have continued to teach the 4th graders. Recently, we have gone more in depth about teaching them Scratch and how it works. In our most recent lesson, we taught them how to make a maze. In the beginning of this lesson, we asked students very general questions about how they think they could make a maze using the earlier ideas and concepts we taught to them. Many of the students were not entirely sure, however, after explaining more in depth about the maze, and asking them questions like “What is the purpose of a maze,” and their prior knowledge of how to make a Sprite move, most of them then understood where in Scratch to look.
So far, this has been fun, but also more challenging especially because making a maze is much more difficult and complex. I learned that it is very difficult not to tell the 4th graders the answers of where to look, and where to put things. This is because it would sometimes be a complicated task that could be difficult to explain to the 4th graders, and we wanted to just show them the answer right away. However, challenging them makes them better in the long run, and it is better that they only complete the challenges on their own so that they not only better get to know the software of Scratch, but also feel proud of themselves when they learn/try something new. I also learned that asking the students more questions allows them to think about it more in depth, to formulate more of their own questions, and to understand Scratch better. Overall, I enjoyed teaching the 4th graders Scratch, and I am excited to see what we will be doing the coming weeks in class! |
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April 2018
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