Reflections on Scratch Educator Meetup @ MIT: Saturday, October 13, 2012

Thanks to everyone who joined us at the first Scratch Educator Meetup of the 2012-2013 school year!

Here is a recap and some reflections from the event:

Attendees
Below is a list of people who attended the meetup on Saturday:

• Sandra Bleecker
• Lawrence Burns
• Janet Dee
• Rosie Delacruz
• Fran DeMoura
• John Gomes
• Ingrid Gustafson
• Megan Haddadi
• Lorraine Leo
• Helen Mastico
• Chris Mosier
• Rosemary Slattery
• Meaghan Worcester
• Karen Brennan
• Michelle Chung
• Laura Johnson
• Tomoko Matsukawa
• Rupangi Sharma

To connect with someone from the meetup, click on a name above and leave a message on their profile page.

Recap

• Getting to Know You - Upon arrival, each attendee was asked to share a powerful summer learning experience and one goal for this year on large sticky notes.
• Introductions - We went around the circle and each shared our name, where we're from, our Scratch background, and one thing we want to explore next.
• Breakout Sessions - Participants separated into teams of four to brainstorm breakout session ideas. Then, the group collectivly decided on the agenda for the rest of the afternoon. Three breakout session topics emerged: Exploring Scratch 2.0, Scratch Professional Development, and Using Scratch Across the Curriculum.
  
• Photos - Here are pictures from the meetup.

Announcements

• Interested in testing Scratch 2.0? Sign up here.
• Check out the new Super Scratch Programming Adventure! book.

Questions and Suggestions

• Rosemary suggested an App Inventor Meetup.
• Participants expressed interested in a session to learn more about Scratch 2.0 (ie: clone and cloud variable features) and having more hands-on design challenges.
• Fran requested that Scratch 2.0 be developed for as many platforms as possible in order for Scratch to reach a wide audience.
• Rosie was curious if there is a Scratch reference guide. One is available here. Another suggestion is to use ctrl + click (right click) on blocks to access the help menu in Scratch or explore other reference guides on ScratchEd.
• Another participant was interested in being able to carry scripts across multiple sprites.
• Suggestions for the Scratch 2.0 paint editor: eraser tool, line tool, fill bucket is confusing, larger pen size options
• Someone pointed out that Scratch 2.0 should give automatic attribution to sprite creators when sharing sprites using the backpack feature.

Join us for the next Scratch Educator Meetup on Saturday, November 10 at MIT. Registration is available at http://2012-2013meetups.eventbrite.com.

Thanks for meeting up with us!