In today session we looked at using Scratch as an insight into coding. Having seen Scratch used before but having difficulty to understand it, I was apprehensive about how the session would go therefore ahead of the lesson I felt it was beneficial to watch some YouTube videos on how to use Scratch Jnr to allow me to have an idea on what was going on when I went to use it.
Through reading, the importance of having and understanding of coding was conveyed;
“They live in a world that is shaped by physics, chemistry, biology and history, and so we – rightly – want them to understand these things. But their world will be also shaped and configured by networked computing and if they don’t have a deeper understanding of this stuff then they will effectively be intellectually crippled.” (Naughton, 2012)
This therefore highlights that without this knowledge, we would be putting children at a disadvantage as Scratch Jnr allows children the opportunity to be accountable for their own learning, development and skill enhancement through the interactive stories and games that the coding programme has to offer. The coding programme of Scratch allows the children the ability to work on and develop skills such as their creativity, problem solving skills and working collaboratively therefore working on their communication and literacy skills. Scratch can be used across curricular areas of digital technology and another, the relevance of the programme is conveyed.
In my activity, I decided to use Scratch Jnr as a way to develop literacy. I based it on a morning daily routine before going to school so that it could be relatable to the children. I started it by the character getting dressed and giving a number of clues as to what object they were looking for and also by using the letters dotted around in the image they had to find the correct answer. I also brought in the characters journey to school and tried to bring in the important factor of road safety by making the character tell the children that to cross the road safely they had to spell the correct word. I targeted this activity at the early stages of first level.
Experiences and outcomes that I met were:
- I know and can demonstrate how to travel safely. (HWB 1-18a)
- I am developing problem solving strategies, navigation and co-ordination skills, as I play and learn with electronic games, remote control or programmable. (TCH 1-09a)
(Education.gov.scot, n.d.)
Overall, I did find this a useful lesson as it has allowed me the opportunity to experiment with an app and gain better knowledge on it however, if I was to use this as a lesson, I would need to spend quite some time familiarising myself with it again as I do still feel I have more to learn to be confident in this area. I also do think this activity would require a lot of planning to ensure it lasted an adequate amount of time as when making my activity it took around an hour however, in a classroom setting, may only have lasted 10 minutes. Therefore, this would not be adequate time management.
References
- Education.gov.scot. (n.d.). Curriculum For Excellence. [online] Available at: https://education.gov.scot/Documents/All-experiencesoutcomes18.pdf [Accessed 22 Jan. 2019].
- Naughton, J. (2012). Why all our kids should be taught how to code. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/mar/31/why-kids-should-be-taught-code [Accessed 30 Jan. 2019].
