Future developments for MicroWorlds

["Ray Catzel" <raycatzel@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Earlier this year I gave students a questionnaire to rate the various
activities we did in computer class according to their enjoyment level. The
activities listed were as follows:

Computer Hardware (how the computer works)
Opening and Saving files
Programming (commanding the turtle to do things)
Making games using MicroWorlds
Robotics (using MicroWorlds)
Spreadsheet
Word-processing
Graphics and animation
Multimedia presentations
Inspiration/Kidspiration
Graphics and animation
Keyboarding

The MicroWorlds activities were rated highly by most of the students.

One activity that is not listed is "free time" during which the students
were allowed to use the Internet freely (under supervision for "proper" site
selection). If I were to include this I am certain that activities involving
sites such as "Facebook" and "U-tube" would get the top ratings!

Using this input (LCSI - are you listening?) the favoured activity of
communicating between students should be an area for further development.
The ability to export or email turtles is a good start and I am developing
some MicroWorlds projects based on this capability.

Any thoughts?

======ray

-----Original Message-----
From: mwforum-admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:mwforum-admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Wendy
Petti
Sent: May 24, 2007 2:21 PM
To: mwforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Scratch


Our school gained access to Scratch a couple of months ago.  I had
introduced some of my students to MicroWorlds some months ago; a French
teacher introduced all of his students to Scratch and they have had more
time to explore it than MicroWorlds.

As I continued to work with a small group of students on MicroWorlds after
school, one or two of them defected and only wanted to work on Scratch.
They seemed to find it more fun and user-friendly.  As soon as I witnessed
their excitement and ease in using Scratch, I too began to wonder if Scratch
might be a better programming environment for today's students.  Just
because we as teachers are more familiar and comfortable with MW doesn't
mean that there aren't compelling reasons for us to consider a switch to a
more user-friendly environment for kids.

When it came time to use one of these programming environments to create
some activities for a Math Family Fun Night we are planning, some of the
students wanted to use Scratch.

Snce I am completely unfamiliar with it, I asked them, as we considered
updating a MicroWorlds project that generates random crowds:  "Can Scratch
generate thousands of randomly-placed pictures, selecting randomly among a
collection of shapes, as MicroWorlds can?  Can it keep and report scores?"
Perhaps they had not familiarized themselves with all of the capabilities of
Scratch, but after I asked my questions, they seemed to think it would be
better to stick with MicroWorlds for that activity.

When another group wanted to produce a Jeopardy game show, I asked more
questions to determine if we could build this game show in Scratch.  Once
again, the students who were familiar with both programming environments
seemed to think we would be better off using MicroWorlds.  (Frankly, I still
think we might have been better off using a Jeopardy PowerPoint template!)

I have always liked what is commonly said about Logo, "It has a low
threshold and no ceiling."  It seems that Scratch has an even lower
threshold.  (I found Daniel's examples very compelling.)

But what I'd like to know is: Does Scratch have a ceiling?

Wendy


> Do you think Scratch is a better balance ... for elementary school and
middle school kids?