Scratch-ing the Itch to Code

SGVCUE was delighted to have Vicki Sedgwick present a hands-on workshop, Scratch-ing the Itch to Code, on February 25 for their members. Teachers from throughout the San Gabriel Valley attended the Saturday event.

Vicki Sedgwick is an educator from the San Fernando Valley. She is a member of the Computer Science Standards Committee developing the new K-5 standards for Computer Science. Vicki is a K-8 teacher that teaches coding and computer skills. She generously shares her knowledge through CUE programs and Ed Camps throughout California. Her passion is giving students tools to express themselves. The Scratch program is a tool she has used effectively to develop this passion with her students.

Scratch (https://scratch.mit.edu/) is a free website provided by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. The website allows users to program interactive stories, games, and animations and share your creations with others in the online community. Scratch helps young people learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively on the essential skills necessary for life in the 21st century. The ability to code without having to create accounts is a convenient feature for teachers.

Vicki shared activities that incorporated math, social studies, language arts and other subject areas to coding. She made connections to curricular projects by sharing how coding can reinvent traditional projects, such as the 4th-grade mission project by letting students create a mission by coding online. Vicki shared many of her curated resources at http://bit.ly/scratchcoffeebreak. The educators attending were encouraged to explore and play with the Scratch platform. The hands-on practice was the first experiment with coding for many of the teachers.

Helpful hints on creating accounts and having students make avatars for easy identification were featured in the training. The focus on collaborative opportunities for 21st-century learners was a repeated theme. Students are able to comment and give suggestions within the Scratch platform if accounts are created. The website provides a community to share ideas and give feedback. The importance of digital citizenship was emphasized to support the use of these collaborative features. There were a variety of exciting resources and ideas to inspire our students.

The hands-on work with Makey Makey was a highlight, the teachers worked together to create keyboards to play music and make sound effects. Teachers left ready to try coding with TK students and older. It was great launch into the coding world for the whole group.

Thank you Vicki!