Scratch is a "new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art (scratch.mit.edu)". Scratch and Alice (alice.org) seem very similar in nature - such as the drag and drop interface - but I'm interested to know which "language" (are these really considered programming languages??) really helps students develop transferrable programming knowledge. Activities that are 'visual' are most appealing to students ages 8-18, which explains why web design, robotics and "programming languages" such as Alice and Scratch are helping to generate interest in CS amongst middle and high school students. Another thing I like about Scratch is that the students are able to post their projects online. This essentially creates an online social network of students working on Scratch projects. At this moment, there are 347,024 projects with a total of 8,928,428 scripts and 2,710,427 sprites (animation objects) created by 52,655 contributors (from the Scratch home page). I'm interested to hear about others using Scratch, as well as comparisons to Alice? Is Scratch better for high school or middle school students? Or appropriate for both?
Dr. Henry Leitner, a professor at Harvard University brought up the book "Great Ideas in CS with Java" - while I haven't read the book, the topic sure does interest me. He uses this book to teach an Intro to CS course for humanities and social science majors who want "industry level" programming skills (ie. these students want something to put on their resume.) What about teaching CS2 from this level. From the description of the book on Amazon.com, it seems as a thorough book that covers fundamental object oriented programming concepts while connecting it to relevant programming projects. While he uses this book, he also mentioned using Scratch to introduce students to think 'algorithmically' through 3, 50 minute lectures.
Dr. Henry Leitner, a professor at Harvard University brought up the book "Great Ideas in CS with Java" - while I haven't read the book, the topic sure does interest me. He uses this book to teach an Intro to CS course for humanities and social science majors who want "industry level" programming skills (ie. these students want something to put on their resume.) What about teaching CS2 from this level. From the description of the book on Amazon.com, it seems as a thorough book that covers fundamental object oriented programming concepts while connecting it to relevant programming projects. While he uses this book, he also mentioned using Scratch to introduce students to think 'algorithmically' through 3, 50 minute lectures.
The other workshop discussed how to make computing fun again. How do we rediscover (and share) the passion, beauty and awe of computing??????? Robb Cutler was one of the panelists and he brought up the point that "How we teach determines learning and PBJA." (PBJA is short for passion, beauty, joy and awe.) He also mentioned that "What we see as aww inspiring they see as "um hmm." Soo true :) What we (adults) find 'aww inspiring' youth are not so inspired. We have to realize what we like is not always of interest to students in CS1 - if teachers don't take this into account ... how do we get the PBJA factor? Finally, the computer as the tool and not the focal point. I believe that if we teach computer science from the perspective of computing as a tool to a means of solving a problem or achieving a goal we can make CS a more inviting subject. Zach Dodds said something I will never forget ..."what is learned is the square root of what is taught." :)
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