Teaching Getting Unstuck

Last year I had the amazing opportunity to pilot the Creative Computing Lab’s Getting Unstuck curriculum with a fourth grade class. Our weekly coding sessions is what got me, the classroom teacher, and the students, through the year, honestly.

I started the class off with some introductory Scratch projects in the fall to get them familiar with Scratch online and some of the basics in preparation for starting Getting Unstuck in January. I created a class and Scratch usernames with my Scratch teacher account. The students use Chromebooks and Google Classroom so it was easy to share Scratch studio links, project instructions and GU journals whether we were remote or not.

Our starter projects for the fall were: Trick or Treat, Butterfly Gardens, and a Maze (for #CSEdWeek2020). These are some of my favorite, go to, introductory projects but they are all step-by-step, follow along projects that produce similar results. The creativity is limited and comes with boundaries. Still a great way to introduce Scratch and what you can do with it.

In January we started with the Getting Unstuck “When Clicked” module. I showed the introduction video, went over the design journal and we brainstormed about project ideas. We were going to look at the Inspiration studio next but ran out of time for that session. I met with them once a week for 30-40 minutes. It worked but modules took longer than I anticipated – mostly because the students, generally, wanted more time to work on their projects. At first it was hard to get them to share their unfinished projects in our class studio. I told them to consider them works in progress, or WIP, and that they could indicate that in the directions, notes or title. From my Scratch teacher account, I can’t look at projects unless they have shared them. Putting them in the design studio helps too.

Our first GU studio – so much creative coding!

In February we started the Getting Unstuck “Color Sensing” module. This one went better but the students had an idea of the process – how the journal works, the work flow and expectations. They had some experience sharing and reflecting. I also had a better understanding of the size and scope of projects they could create in the time I was giving them. Some of the students had such big ideas for projects and, as any coder knows, it always takes longer than expected to complete. Most of my students are novice coders but they were able to show so much expression, voice and creativity within this framework that I was happy to give them a little bit more time. I was also glad to see more reflection and more community (commenting and supporting each other) this time around.

Our third and final module was Getting Unstuck “Broadcast” module. I had planned to try the “Random” module as adding randomness to my projects is one of my favorite things, but I realized that my students weren’t ready. They were ready for broadcast and receive. One student had needed it for an earlier project. The students did a good job with this difficult concept and the GU unplugged activity really helped. The students had improved so much. They were seeing their own perseverance and growth (and writing about it in their journal) and were really enjoying giving and getting comments and especially the coding!

Commenting within a supportive community

That’s a quick overview of my experience. I also supported by the creators of the curriculum at the Creative Computing Lab and the other teachers piloting the project which was so helpful.

If you want to learn more, there’s a Getting Unstuck launch party! This party will take the form of a Twitter chat, using the #GettingUnstuck hashtag, on August 10 from 6–7pm EDT.

Creative Stress Relief

My library coder’s club for middle school students started up again today. We are meeting once a month, virtually.

Creative Coder’s Club library publicity

Last month I received an email from Code Club about their latest new Scratch module and decided that these were just what I needed for my club.

Code Club email

It’s a new year and I won’t know who will show up, who will be new to Scratch, or who will be a returning Scratcher who has done my go-to starter projects. The Stress Ball project was a good fit as a first project for my code club.

My sample project:Pink de-stresser

I created a studio for the well-being module called Take Care and sent out the project info, virtual meeting info and hoped people would sign up and show up. We had 7 coders sign up.

Really cool coder project: Changing stress ball

Six coders showed up to code, which was fantastic! My librarian co-host had some internet trouble at the beginning, but I saw most of the coders faces on screen, which was exciting, and only two were returning students.

I started the meeting by going over the Scratch Community Guidelines and making sure everyone was signed in to their online account. They had the option of using one of my student accounts if they didn’t have their own. I sent out the info for these using the private chat feature of the meeting.

Halloween themed Stressball project

I went slowly through the project, sharing my screen as I created the stress ball, slowing down when coders asked questions. I really appreciated that they would advocate for themselves when they were following what I was doing. It is not easy to know how to pace a virtual meeting and was happy to hear the coders say something when they needed guidance. That doesn’t always happen, but with only six, it was easy for me to check on each student to see how things were going. The project was fairly simple, which helped.

Stress ball code

I made it through the basic project directions in the first half hour which left 15 minutes for everyone to make creative improvements before we shared and played our projects in the last 15.

Cat stress ball

I was really proud that almost everyone was able to add their creative touches, share their projects, and even add their project to our shared class studio. I was able to troubleshoot some issues by asking the coders to share their screens, but mostly those turned out to be account issues -like not being able to “share” a project in a new Scratch account until the email address is confirmed. (That coder was able to share and add his project to our studio later that day. Yay!) I find that adding projects to a studio can be a tricky endeavor sometimes. Navigating to the studio when you aren’t part of the class can be tricky. Inviting curators without knowing how to spell the Scratchers username is tricky. Adding a project you haven’t shared yet – oops, can’t do that – so it’s also tricky. I am getting better at troubleshooting and helping students be successful at this. And it leads to one of the fun parts of being part of the Scratch community- to be able to see and play each others projects.

One student declined to share and I could see there were some frustrations with the coding (and a parent had come in to view to help and explain he was still working on it and didn’t have anything yet). Perfectly understandable. If he needed more time, he had access to all the resources, he could come back at another time and add more.

Expert level coding!

I was also very impressed with one of my returning coders. He took the time to write up directions and play other club members projects and give them good feedback, too. He also helped me out during the Zoom meeting by leaving me comments in the chat. He also sent me a nice note. And exemplar Scratcher.

Sweet thank you note.

As we were signing off at the end and talking up next month’s Butterfly Garden project, I wondered if any of the coders were international students like we have had before. I think a couple of them may have been Canadian. One said it was dark outside at her house, so she’s definitely from a different time zone. I do hope they all come back next month. I sure had a great time. I hope they all did.

Take care

Star Wars and a Rogue

May the 4th was this week. This week had the first Monday of May.  The first Monday of May is when my library code club meets.  I was thinking of setting up a Scratch Day project for them, but it was May-the-4th, so obviously I pivoted to a Star Wars theme.

One of a few Star Wars day studios

Finding Star Wars-themed projects was not hard.  There are a few studios with over 100 projects in them.  A lot of these are fan artwork.  There are some incredible artists in the Scratch community.

I found a project with just a color-changing lightsaber that I thought would make a great starter for a wide range of creative ideas.  I found another project where some standard Scratch Sprites (Gobo, Pico, Nano) have been transformed into Star Wars characters.  Great starter for a Chatbot.  I also imagined a Kessel run maze game would make a nice option for my Creative Coders.

Star Wars Doodle

Kessel run maze?

I came across this Mandalorian translator which I thought was a great idea.  (If only there was a Google translate for Star Wars languages.  Isn’t there one for Klingon?) I helped the coder out with a suggestion to make it better and got a generous “DUDE thanks” in return.

I put these all together in a class studio and was ready for our virtual club meeting.

**What’s with the new changes to class studios with class passwords?  I can’t find documentation on how it looks from the student’s view or how to explain this to students.  Also, now that I have more than 20 studios in my class I have a hard time adding projects to studios while looking at a project.  Now  I must save and favorite projects then go to the studio and add projects that I’ve favorited.**  

My library code club was a small group but I was happy to see them and show them the projects I had curated for them.  They seemed to have ideas of what they wanted to create. It’s still weird to send them off to code and just hope they don’t get stuck or get frustrated and not continue.  I told them I would be around coding as well and if they needed help to share their project and comment and I would try to respond quickly.  They each did a project and shared it.  They riffed on my starter of Luke’s saber practice.  One added scoring and another changed it into a pong game.  Which is a great idea.  Meanwhile, I worked to improve my Kessel run project (though it is not great yet).

Luke’s saber practice project

I had so much fun that I decided to present the same projects to Wednesday’s school code club.  That’s where the rogue part comes in.

Last Friday during a virtual math meeting that had been canceled but no one told me, I hosted a couple of other students who hadn’t got the memo from their parents.  A pair of us started to talk shop about Code Club and I invited one of the other math students to join.  He had been on the code club waiting list and is becoming quite the techno wiz – gifs, crazy characters, Roblox, etc. during this #stayathome remote learning time. He accepted and proceeded to jump fully into the Scratch community.

On Monday he invited me to curate a studio he had set up. He has also found a couple of the other active online Scratchers in the club and now the three of them are the CEOs of the studio (uh, uber-curators?  I was invited, too, but not promoted to CEO).  They are adding projects they are making, commenting on and liking each other’s projects, and asking each other for help. My rogue Code Club member has created 7 projects in 5 days! IT IS AMAZING! Together they have compiled their self-created cool maze games, Zelda themed animations, random works of art, and other amusing projects.  I could not be happier that they have found their own spot together within the Scratch community.  I’m looking at it as a bright spot in this time of social distancing that they have found a community.

I read the profile of one of my other students and it said he’s only 9 but wants to still be a Scratcher when he is 50. So sweet.

 

One last note.  I had the idea to make a Zoom chat from the Star Wars morphed Scratch Sprites, then I found this Sprite Zoom project – it is hilarious!  I shared it with my math class on Zoom today.  We could all relate so much!!!

Ready to become a Star Wars Zoom meeting

I don’t think I could match that with my Star War Zoom plans.  I hope one of my students gives it a remix.

Scratch @ MIT 2016

I was at my first Scratch Conference at MIT Media Lab last week (#ScratchMIT2016). It was fantastic!  I met so many awesome Scratchers, educators, researchers, developers and enthusiasts.  It was wonderful, inspiring…  “I came for the workshops and stayed for the community.”

I met the awesome Scratcher Bubble103 and her mom the very first evening and didn’t even know I was meeting a Scratch rockstar.  I met people from all around the globe and had great conversations in between keynotes and workshops and during breakfast and lunch breaks. I have made so many connections, it is quite awesome.  The Scratch team is brilliant, kind and adorable.

Dinner was quite fun, too.

Here are some take-aways from the conference that I hope to implement during the (fast approaching) school year.

• read Seymour Papert’s Mindstorms
• work on parent involvement plan – the keynote about Pathways to Participation helped me understand that I need to support students beyond the school environment.
• more collaboration with the art teacher.  This is the year when art and math and code will collide!  I’m going to introduce Beetle Blocks and the watercolorbot.  From Art Alive there was the interacting with art using Scratch and MakeyMakey piece that we might delve into. I hope we’ll do more Scratch animation, too.  STEAM on.
• introduce the development of cheat codes to help debug Scratch at Code Club.  Rik Cross’ workshop Practical Debugging in Scratch  was super informative. Students will enjoy the idea as well.
  

  Photo from a @Raspberry_Pi tweet

• Scratch Jr and the Writer’s Workshop in 1st grade. Scratch Jr has come along way from the first time I saw it and I’m excited about it again. I already have a homeroom assignment with 1st grade teacher who’s tech savvy so this will not need a big sell.
• Mathematical Simulations in Scratch.  I know my students are NOT high school math level students but I liked the way Patrick Honner was able to embrace the tools the students knew (Scratch) to work on real math problems.  I’d like to try some math modeling in Scratch -like the Monte Carlo method.  I’m going to have to see what comes up in 4th grade math class and the Math Forum Problems of the Week and see if anything looks like a good candidate to model using Scratch.
• Continue to develop this community. Now that I’ve met all of these people I want to keep in touch whether on the internets (Twitter, Facebook) or at a ScratchEd meet-up.  I am definitely thinking about visiting Mags in Ireland.  Who knows, maybe there’ll be a Scratch conference in the UK or Europe next year.

 

 

This all looks doable and like hard fun.

(Note: there are things I will have to get, too- embroidery machine for TurtleStitch, 3-d printer for Beetle Blocks, more Makey Makey‘s.)

Scratch On!