Workshop I - Scratch (Programming Language) eduactional use in Basic Education
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Workshop led by: Teresa Marques, Miguel Figueiredo, João Torres & Fernando Frederico
Objectives:
1. To disclose the EduScratch project
2. To disclose the programming graphical environment of Scratch and its educational potential
3. To promote the initiation of the use of Scratch
4. To share experiences of using Scratch in schools
5. To promote reflection on the use of tools that place the student as a builder of digital resources.
Presentation:
The ongoing work of research and improvement of programming languages and environments for young people (LOGO, in the 80s), developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, produced the Scratch tool - an innovative graphical environment for programming, disclosed publicly in May 2007. It allows cooperative work and uses diversified media.
Scratch (“imagine, program, share”) was developed as a response to the problem of the growing gap between the technological developments and the fluency of citizens in their use. It was also thought to promote a constructivist environment favorable to the development of the digital literacy of children and young people, and of the transversal skills “for the twenty-first century”, including problem solving.
The project EduScratch (http://projectos.ese.ips.pt/eduscratch), created in school in 2010/2011 (based on a partnership between ERTE/DGE, CCTIC ESE/IPS and SAPO-PTin), aims to promote the creation and development of a community of educators around the usage of Scratch (http://kids.sapo.pt/scratch/) in school context. With its development, it is intended to promote and support the use of Scratch (and knowledge on this tool) as well as to encourage its use through training and sharing.
This workshop will focus on:
- Possible integration of Scratch in the teaching and learning processes and strategies for the educational use of this tool in different curricular areas, in a transversal perspective.
- Introduction to the commands of the Scratch programming language: function and combination in the production of programming blocks (scripts)
- Motion, Appearance, Sound, Pen, Variables, Control, Operations, Sensors. Other elements of the tool Scratch and its uses - Cycles, "Sprite" Information, drawing editor.
- Development of small Scratch projects (knowledge application)
How does Scratch promote and support the development of transversal skills? How does it allow to naturally anticipate, from students’ needs in problem solving, contents that are worked out later in the programs? How is it possible with Scratch to connect diverse areas of knowledge and to provide more integrated and consistent learning linked to real contexts? Primary education children easily using the Cartesian reference — can it be a real scenario? Preschool children intuitively discovering relationships of physics? Is it possible to solve problems, making motivation to develop creativity and to generate ability in the field of complex procedures? Is it possible to use it with all children, even those with special needs (learning disabilities and giftedness)? These and many other questions will be answered throughout the work in this session.
