International Code Club

This summer I’ve been hosting a weekly virtual code club for middle school students (ages 9-12) through my local library. It started slow at the beginning with one or less students each week. But over the weeks it has grown and now we are up to four or five!! It doesn’t sound like very much, but from talking to Christina from Code Club, that’s not unusual size for virtual code clubs.

I’ve been enjoying setting up the Scratch lessons each week. They included these topics:

Animation

Imaginary Sports – a Scratch Design Studio prompt for June

Music and Sound

Text-to-Speech & Translate

Examples from our studio https://scratch.mit.edu/studios/27193347/

Catch Game

Space Invaders

Pen blocks & Stamps

We have two more weeks where we will make a “How to” Scratch project and end with a “Surprise” project -using a prompt from Getting Unstuck 2020.

Each week I create a Scratch studio with some sample projects and a sharable document with some code tips or project instructions (or links to online project instructions), and I include the link to our weekly studio and virtual meeting. Students are invited to the weekly studio to remix what’s there and then share and add their project to the studio. I started out adding them as curators, but it was easier to temporarily open the studio to allow anyone to add projects and then turn off that option later.

Despite the low numbers, the meeting were successful in that those who showed up learned and created projects they were proud of. I’m proud of them, too. I like to spend the last 10 minutes letting the student share their screen to demo their projects – or let me play their projects if they’re shy. Later I will go and view any more projects that get added or shared to play, favorite, and comment on them.

This last week we found out that two of our participants actually live in Canada when one asked if we all were from her province. That’s the thing with online clubs, there’s no physical boundaries. I had to say, no, some of us were in New Hampshire. It didn’t seem to matter to her. Or any of us. We were having a good time coding and hanging out together.

I’m not sure how my club happened to get some Canadian middle school Scratchers. The library posts the offering on their website and parents can email to sign up. I always have a librarian as a co-host and second adult, as recommended by the Raspberry Pi Foundation (Code Club’s parents organization). She is the one to forward the meeting link and shared document to those who’ve signed up. Our meeting link is not on the website.

A couple of weeks ago I was commenting on one of my participant’s own Story studio to ask her if I could share her studio with the Creative Coders. Another Scratcher commented back and asked if they could join the club. I posted the library sign up link there in the comments. I wonder if they followed through? The librarian noted once, earlier in the summer, that one of the parents asked what time zone the meeting was in. So, I guess, that makes my code club an International Code Club. Pretty exciting!

I’ve learned a lot this summer, too. I’m more comfortable with the online format. I’m getting used to the awkwardness of everyone quietly coding for a half hour with very little questions. I’m quicker at navigating around and finding students recently shared projects. I’m learning what type of projects work in this remote setting.

If you want to know more about the project documents I share with the students, here’s an example (without the meeting link).

Virtual Code Club ends, another begins

I did twelve weeks of virtual code club. Each week I posted materials in our Google Classroom and sent out an email to parents as well. I occasionally hosted virtual office hours (about every other week) and I also tried to comment on all of the projects the students shared online.

I don’t know how many students participated beyond the few that came to the office hours or that shared projects online. Very few students posted comments in our Classroom and no parent ever responded to my emails after the first one. It is hard to believe no one had any questions, but it is easy to believe that with all of the other virtual classwork students were doing, no one had the bandwidth to add code club on top of it all.

Last virtual code club week post

For the final week, I thought about making another video of myself to say thanks for coming along with me on our virtual code club, but I made this Scratch project instead:

And challenged them to make a “Thank you card” Scratch project, too.

I posted Code Club certificates for them and closed the book on this experiment. In reflection, I learned that putting out weekly projects with no feedback as to how they are received is hard. I don’t like it. There is no way to change it on the fly to make it work for each student. I really don’t know what I need to change to engage more students, and yet I don’t think it was me that caused low attendance.  It was an optional part of virtual life during emergency remote learning during a pandemic.

So I put out project ideas that I thought they would like and that I liked, too. In the end, there are more Scratchers out there, creating projects that interest them. They may not have the foundational skills I was hoping to instill, but they are part of the Scratch Community and will find it for themselves or perhaps seek out more opportunities and working on more passion projects.

A code club member and Scratcher following his own interests.

Another new Scratcher working on their own passion project.

I’m starting my summer virtual code club through the public library today. I’m hoping some kids come so I can get some feedback and learn to be better at being a virtual code club coach.

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.

LMS Winter Carnival

Last week I ran two coding sessions at the middle school for their Winter Carnival.  There are a wide variety of activities offered for the 5th- to 8th-grade students during the morning, divided into two 1.5 hours sessions. Options ranged from skiing, dancing, and ping-pong, to cookie decorating, tic-tac-toe, and D&D.  I was invited to offer Scratch coding.

Winter Carnival Project Studio

My activity, Coding/Scratch, had this description: “Students will have the option to create a game, animation or pursue a passion project of their choice using Scratch 3.0 coding environment.”

Despite the unlimited options in the description, I wanted to offer some project guidance as I didn’t know the coding experience of those who would sign up. I decided on three projects from Code Club World that in my experience offer students the greatest creative choice coupled with step-by-step instructions.  The first option was Chatbot.  I’ve discussed how much I like this project before and with the added text-to-speech options in Scratch 3.0, I knew this would be a hit. The second option was a “clicker game” presented with Code Club World’s Ghostbusters project.  The third project was the “side-scrolling platform game” Flappy Parrot from Code Club World.  I feel any of these three projects can be accomplished in 1.5-hours with this age group.

Centaur Chatbot 

In preparation, I went through and created starter versions of these projects. I also set up a Scratch studio for everyone to share their projects. Once the students were logged into Scratch (some had to make their own, new accounts), I invited them to be curators so they could add their projects to our group studio. This part required a bit of administrative time but it is not difficult and works well for everyone to have a single place to go to play each other’s projects. I feel it is important to carve out time to share and showcase what everyone has accomplished, knowing that we all had a limited amount of time and that the projects aren’t perfect or even finished.

Chatty Winter Chatbot example

About ten students signed up for each session but only one girl in each session.  One of the math teachers joined me- she is eager to learn Scratch and we work well together.  I knew more than half of the students and some of them were with me in past Code Clubs. I think the students had a good time. I definitely feel like we supported their ideas and creativity. I’d love to get feedback from them. I shared the project studio with the school administrators and they thanked me for participating.

Chungus Run – a creative Flappy Parrot game – good instructions, too 

Some notes from the sessions:

• Time management is key with short sessions – I posted our schedule – Intro 10min/ Plan 10min/ Code 55min/ Share 15min
• The project guides were helpful even if only to get them started before they went off on coding tangents.
• These students showed creative, flexible thinking. Scratch supported their creativity by making coding flexible to their ideas.
• It is difficult to share something you know is incomplete.  I announced a time check at 15 minutes before we wanted to share, so no one was caught unaware.

Fishie Click game – former 4th grade Code Club member

Coding projects are like art – they are never really “finished” or “perfect”.  They are “done” when you decide to stop working on them. – I said this to someone who was bemoaning the end of the coding time and another student laughed.  She clarified that she was an artist and understood that fact very well.

The Majestic Bird – Well done and so annoying!

 

Timing & Video Sensing

Last week at Creative Coders Club we played with video sensing in Scratch 3.0. It was a ton of fun.

I originally wanted to teach the students some new coding techniques to add to their skill set and thought about introducing using timing and timers.  Adding the wait time block to music or animation can produce powerful effects.  Also, adding a count down timer in a game can make it more thrilling.  I remember having a Getting Unstuck challenge in this theme of using time-related sensing blocks. Here are the examples I presented to the students:

Getting Unstuck example https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/237650427/

Learning project from YoungHacks which shows a bunch of uses of timing blocks

Allenqin22’s project uses Cloud variables – another thing I need to introduce to my coders.

 

I also thought this reaction timer example would interest the middle schoolers.

 

 

While I was looking for examples, I found this featured project, called Excuse Generator, which the students did enjoy looking at. It was not related to any ideas I was presenting, but it was such a cool project by a new Scratcher I had to share!

Scratcher Rose-Pearl’s Excuse Generator

The biggest hit turned out to be the video sensing extension.  I knew it would be a great fit for this group when I found the Scratch Team’s Save the Minifigs project. This group would love creating something like that.   My co-leader Kathy agreed.  She found and printed the Scratch video sensing cards for the group.  Since we use Chromebooks, we had easy access to webcams.

We had some technical trouble with the Wifi, not related to Scratch and students had to work in pairs while we worked on getting more computers up and running. In the end, the students didn’t feel like they had enough time to work on this topic so we will revisit video sensing next month.

Here’s what they were able to accomplish.

Catness – pet the cat and get some strange effects.

(I was going to add more pictures but who wants to see my face multiple times? Just go to the studio link above and check them out.)

One funny note: As I was circulating around to help students, I would inadvertently cross through the webcam’s view of someone’s project and cause all sorts of havoc.  I would also misinterpret someone waving as someone needing help and zip around – through the webcam’s view of others, only to find they were just testing video sensing.  We meet in a library conference room with windows to the main area. I imagined we looked strange with all the arm-waving going on.

I can’t wait to continue with this next month.

Summertime MakeyMakey

Last Tuesday was the fourth and final session of the summer Creative Coding Club at the public library.  It was MakeyMakey time.

The library now has four MakeyMakey devices available to check out! Combined with the eight I borrowed from my school, we had enough for each person to have their own. The library also has Colleen and Aaron Graves’ book 20 Makey Makey Projects for the Evil Genius. I spent some time looking through it ahead of time and ended up building the marble maze project. It had just the right “difficulty to fun” ratio for me.

I also gathered some supplies, built a couple of pressure switches, and made conductive playdough (I made a gluten-free version with chickpea flour and the kids thought it smelled odd).  I put a few example projects into our Summer #4 Scratch class studio.

Starter MakeyMakey projects

At the library, we had a fully stocked supply table, thanks to Kathy, and I set up a homemade dance mat (foil and cardboard), the marble maze, and a playdough button piano as examples.

I often find it difficult to introduce and explain what a MakeyMakey device does in a clear, efficient way.  It is much easier to show the MakeyMakeys in action then let the students explore. Three of the students had used MakeyMakey devices before (at our session in May) so they helped me explain to the others.  I did try to hit the key concepts about making a complete circuit or connecting yourself to earth and what to code to get a response.

The best thing about this session was that we had the gift of time.  Extra time to play and explore.  We were just doing this one open-ended thing – playing with MakeyMakey devices and Scratch. The whole time. 90 minutes. It was lovely. We were on Summertime, where you could dive into a project and not worry about constantly moving on to the next thing.

One student had a banana, a potato, a cucumber, and a ball of playdough connected to her music project. Another student made playdough buttons to play his Moonhack project from the previous session.  Another made a 2-player rocket race game.

At one point I walked by two of the girls and they both just had the biggest grins on their faces while playing banana pianos and adjusting their code.

Staying connected to earth was tricky. I made a playdough ring for my finger but that didn’t work as well as I’d hoped. Other students had other ideas.

Pinkie connection to earth

Wrist connections to earth

One student, near the end, told me he failed. He’s my big idea kid, always exploring the boundaries and testing even bigger ideas. A simple banana piano? Forget it. He thinks up complex ideas and tries them out. He and I both weren’t phased by his declaration, and I didn’t try to help him “be successful”. I just nodded and sat with him for a second in case he wanted to explain where he had failed but he just went on to try some other idea.

My one takeaway on this session was how lovely it was to have time to explore and not hurry off to something else. I enjoyed this slower paced session and they did, too. I have to remember not to over schedule our time and stop worrying about them running out of things to do.

We did stop to share and admire what everyone was doing and then the pizza arrived! Great way to end.

I hope some of these Scratchers check out one of the library’s MakeyMakeys and spend more time exploring the possibilities.

Snow Day Cancels Showcase #9

We had a snow day on the day of our Code Club Showcase, so it was canceled.  I decided not to reschedule it.  I sent an email to all of the parents to let them know.

I included a link to all of the finished projects with this note:

Please take a moment and have your child show you his or her project.  Give it a try.  They are all very creative and represent a lot of hard work on their part.  Well done, everyone!

We had 14 great projects this term with a lot of variety.

Drop you, Cat Sweeper, and Parkour Cat are all difficult maze-type games. Riddler, Ghost Math and Penguin Trivia ask hard questions.  In addition, there are two virtual pet projects, three chase games, two catch games, and a fighting game.

 

All original artwork is tons of work.

 

The creator of Kung-fu Master spent a lot of time designing his Sprites with different costumes for different fight poses.  He uses different keys to control each character and has a computer-controlled character for the user to battle.  He worked independently and did an amazing job.

 

Cat Sweeper, a chase, maze hybrid

I admit I was hoping to see Cat Sweeper presented so I could find out more about it. This was another independent coder who worked really hard and shows a lot of coding skill. It even has a one or two player mode. I ‘lose’ a lot every time I play it.

 

Space Adventures

The creator of Space Adventures wanted to make a Try Not to Laugh project as well but instead concentrated on a fun, challenging catch game.

I found time this week during 4th-grade recess to have the Code Club members invite a school friend to join them and test out the games they all made.  It was not the same as having a showcase presentation, but their games were played and enjoyed by all.

I certainly enjoyed coaching them and watching them develop their coding skills. Well done, everyone!

 

 

New Code Club Starts

I am collaborating with the children’s librarian in my city to run a monthly code club for kids 8-12.  Our first meeting was last Monday.  We had six kids show up.  I knew three of them from two years ago when they were in my after-school 4th grade Code Club.  It was great to see them again.  The other three were mostly new to Scratch.  One of the coder’s grandmother stayed for the session and we set her up to play and learn Scratch, too, and she jumped right in a made a Chatbot project.

I knew we were going to be using the library’s Chromebooks, so I set up a teacher account and a class along with some student accounts.  I figured a few of the coders might have a Scratch account already.  One said he did but didn’t remember it.  They all ended up using one of the class accounts.   That made it easy for sharing their projects at the end of the session.

Chatbot is one of my favorite projects from Code Club World.  It requires only one Sprite and Stage, is interactive, and the projects can become very creative very quickly.   It introduces the conditional block “if then, else”, a powerful, useful coding block for decision making.  It also introduces the ask-answer block pair as a quick way to introduce interactivity. The expert coders sort of remembered Chatbot but were very happy to revisit it.

By the end of the session, everyone was successful in setting up a Chatbot and coding an “if then, else” block at the least.  Some added more complexity with movements and costume changes. It was fun to see the different, creative takes on Chatbot.  The coders shared their projects, even though some were not complete and we played them all through.  I put them in our October project studio and liked them all.

I thought the English/Spanish Chatbot project was a great idea – it could be a cool way to show what you’ve learned from Spanish class.

We asked the club members what types of projects they wanted to work on in future meetings.  I heard ideas ranging from Ghost Busters, Pong, anything with horses, to a platform game. Good ideas!  We are hoping more kids sign up and we can grow the club a bit.

It was great to be back working with Scratchers.  My after-school Code Club starts up next week. More new Scratchers.