What is Scratch?
Scratch is developed by the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab. See http://scratch.mit.edu for more information. The Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab developed Scratch as a teaching language specifically for 8 to 16 year olds, but there's nothing stopping the rest of us from enjoying the Scratch experience and sharpening our 21st century learning skills.
21st century learning skills
Learning: We do it for life. We should help our children develop skills that will help them keep learning in an increasingly digital environment.
Using Scratch, we learn how to design, think, collaborate, communicate, analyze, and program in a computer language. Many of these ideas incorporate 21st century learning skills. If you'd like more information about 21st century learning skills, visit the Partnership for 21st Century Skills web site at http://www.21stcenturyskills.org.
By the time we make our cat dance for the first time, we'll forget all about the academic research and theories behind Scratch. Instead, we'll be focused on discovering the next idea.
How to use Scratch?
I couldn't begin to suggest every possible way for you to use Scratch; that's why we have an imagination. However, here are a few ideas to get you started.
Use Scratch to teach yourself or your students how to program. That's the obvious one.
Use Scratch to demonstrate math concepts. For example, when it's time to teach variables, set up an interactive game that uses a variable to keep score or moves based on the variable data. Scratch can also demonstrate the X and Y coordinate system.
Inspire your kids to read and write. Find a story and animate each scene, or encourage them to animate the story. Turn their persuasive essays into a Scratch project.
Have a child who only wants to play video games? Make a deal. Your child can play only the games he or she creates with Scratch.
I'm sure you've got a lot of ideas flowing in your mind by now. Keep writing them down no matter how hard, easy, obvious, or silly they seem to be. The next one might be your best idea yet.
