Hour of Code Ideas

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Happy Hour of Code!

 Hi, love your idea of the holiday cards for the Hour of Code activity.  I was wondering if someone could quickly add some holiday-related sprites?  You picture a snowman, tree, and gift, but none of them are found in the library.  While, of course, it's possible for the kids to draw their own, for those of us who are not skilled artists, you're adding a layer of complication that could stop some kids in the first step of the tutorial.  They will either balk at having to draw, whine that there are none available, or spend so long drawing just the perfect sprites that they never get on to the coding part. Maybe someone is already hard at work doing this, if not, if someone could add some appropriate sprites and backgrounds, it would help. If needed, I can ask my daughter to whip some up and I'll email them to you to add.  

All of you are providing great resources! Very good!

We are organizing an Hour of Code for 72 people (36 couples child + parent). Our workshop will be slightly longer, it will have 2.5 hours in duration. We will divide them into two levels: those who already know how to program in Scratch and those yet don't.

  To design the exercises, we find great inspiration in proposals by Derek Breen, Brian Foley, and the tutorial of the SratchEd Team (great videos!).
We have also liked the Studio of projects to remix that has created Adriano Parracciani (CyberParra).

To reserve a place, we are using Eventbrite, which is a great resource to follow and to be in touch with all the people who enroll in the workshop. Also, they don't charge anything if the event organized is free.

Do you know if is this the Studio to share the creations that everyone do?
http://scratch.mit.edu/studios/270514/

To share the projects... Should we suggest to people to create his own account? Or we should create a unique profile for use by all?

A big hug, Marta

I posted several lessons for Hour of Code aligned to the middle school Common Core State Standards. They are more proof that it can be done than anything actually user-tested... but maybe someone can take and adapt.

One possibility:  Speed Racer - a 1-hour Scratch introduction

 Students do not need an account to create a project in Scratch 2.0, however without an account they will not be able to save their project.

If you want/need them to crate and save a new project you might get away with creating just 1 group account--then each student use their name for project name (first name & last initial for privacy).  The advantage of this method is seeing all of their projects when you are logged into that account.  

Howdy folks,

I'm glad to have stumbled across this thread (and Derek, glad to know that you're a part of it). I'm heading up efforts to help learners 6-18 at a very large network of afterschool institutions (sorry, can't name names in a Google-able thread!) engage in the Hour of Code, and wanted to share my perspectives on the space.

Basically, we're hoping that staff at participating organizations are able to run hourlong sessions using Scratch, Kahn Academy or Code Academy. I know for a fact that, at many organizations, one or more staff have some familiarity with Scratch. This makes it a great candidate.

However, their familiarity is entirely variable and their confidence in self-generating hourlong implementation objectives isn't a given. In general, their anticipation is that we (meaning me, from the HQ) can provide more specific guidance about how best to utilize Scratch in that one hour session. So, I've been looking forward to the outcome of this thread. 

With that in mind, here are some of the opportunities and constraints that I've seen:

• I've found the 'Scratch Cards' most helpful & hadn't know of their existence until this thread.
• Because the afterschool space tends to be a bit chaotic, I'd avoid 'switching stations' too frequently, or at all.
• Computer station audio is not a given, but it does exist. So we have to plan on scenarios that don't rely on instructional video, although instructional video could enrich the session. We could presume that instructors can step in if audio/video isn't a possibility.
• I love the idea of generating anew, particularly with a very concrete goal in mind (animate two objects), but also see the value of remixing (a different sort of tinkering). If the later, it would be awesome to use that experience to help entry-level Scratchers get a sense of [loco]motion and perhaps, even variables.
• I'd love to use this as an opportunity to shift the instructor - learner paradigm a bit. When a learner or group is struggling with a logic question, why not turn that to the class to resolve? Our educators don't always feel this empowerment (often try to answer the question themselves).
• What would an hour of using Scratch look like with a 1:2+ computer:learner ratio?

From my vantage, goals for the hour include:

• Growing staff and learner familiarity with Scratch
• Teaching some of the basics
• Engaging learners in problem-solving of modest, reasonable complexity
• Describing how an understanding of Scratch can lead toward 'real-world' code tinkering
• Indicating a 'what next' (which might be very much specific to this organization)

Which means that a session could:

• Introduce Scratch through brief dialoge w or w/o video (5 mins)
• Introduce an intiial simple problem (move from Point A to Point B) (10 mins)
• Introduce additional logic (loop to draw a shape) (10 mins)
• Apply in the context of a remix to solve a problem (e.g., Activate C when A hits B) (30 mins, fuzzy)
• Recap / Talk through challenges / solutions / what next (5 mins)

So... those are some perspectives on my approach to the day and Scratch space. Perhaps it'll be helpful food for thought as the materials evolve? Here's to hoping so! 

Cheers,
--Dave

 I'm still a big fan of Scratch Cards. . . I had great success with 9th/10th graders using the following strategies:

1. Have previous/experienced Scratch student open with brief project presentation.
2. Either student or instructor gives cursory intro to the Scratch interface.
3. Group students in clusters of 4-5, one student per laptop.
4. Students are given 2 minutes to create account, start new project and choose one sprite at random. 
5. Each group given 4-5 different Scratch cards.
6. Announce they have 2 minutes to try out the block/technique on their card.
7. After 2 minutes yell, "Switch," and they all pass their card and add new block to their project.
8. Do this 4 times then yell, "Scratch." Now instead of switching cards, students move to the next computer and modify that person's project.
9. After 4 "Scratches" everbody returns to their seats to check out what has become of their original project.
10. If time permits, do gallery walk and/or ask for volunteers to present their Scratched Scratch project.
11. Ticket to go is adding their project to a Scratch Studio created for that specific class.
12. Can broaden by having a grade- or school-wide studio.

My goal in developing the above procedure was to immediately engage students, filter the possibly overwhelming block-based coding environment into just 1 block at a time and focus their energy on coding rather than spending 20 minutes browsing canned-clipart.  The shifting of seats not only keeps things lively, but also removes some of the attachment to project outcome, as well as physically demonstrating the idea of collaboration and remixing.