Recap for Scratch Educator Meetup - Cambridge MA Oct. 17, 2015
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Janet Dee
Member
October 21, 2015
Our first meetup of the 2015-2016 school year at the Kennedy-Longfellow School in Cambridge was a great success. Comments like, “I have never seen PD like this,” and “Scratch is not just about coding, it’s about community,” inspired our 3 hours of sharing.
Attendees: (with links to ScratchEd user profiles)
Cyntia Barzelatto
Christine Beltran
Sandra Bleecker
Dana Cantor
Steven Connelly
Janet Dee
George Daukantas
Maria DeCicco
Svetlana Grinshpan
Raquel Jimenez
Lorraine Leo
Kathleen Martell
Michael McLaughlin
Natalie Paine
Yoonah Park
Wilhelmina Peragine
Carmelo Presicce
Stephen Richards
Soo Jung Roh
Maheen Sahoo
Adam Scharfenberger
Tatiana Shevchenko
Rosemary Slattery
Richard Smyth
Barbara Tennyson
Sabita Verma
Daniel Watt
Recap:
Networking and Scheduling: After an informal gathering around our “food table” with coffee, juice, fruit, and bagels, we introduced ourselves and shared what we were thinking about on our way to the meetup. There was an overwhelming consensus that people were excited about learning more about Scratch as well as learning how educators are using it in their classrooms and other venues. Others were just pleased that it was a beautiful day in Cambridge.
All 25 of us then contributed a collection of post-it notes with topic requests. Adam and Barbara accepted the challenge of grouping the notes and created our agenda for the day.
Breakout Sessions: Two sets of 45 minute sessions were planned. In the first session we held a Google Hangout with the ScratchEd Meetup concurrently being held in Lexington, KY. (Janet and Leanna had “planned” this ahead of time.) A big thank you to Maheen for starting the hangout and providing the tech confidence. We enjoyed hanging out on a Saturday morning with wonderful educators from Kentucky. Rosemary and Adam led a hands-on introduction to Scratch with a maze project and a pen tool project. Richard brought his Hangman project for help and inspiration. The group had great discussions around computer science content. The Scratch projects were very popular and many continued to work on them through the second session. Carmelo helped Barbara and Willa try out the Little Bits with Scratch. Lorraine led a group looking at ways Scratch can make global connections.
Lunch Discussions: The enthusiastic conversations continued over lunch. We shared some projects and announcements (see below).
Shout Outs: Our Harvard Interns who joined us today. Carmelo from the MIT Media Lab LLKG for his help with the Little Bits. Leanne Prater and all the educators from Lexington KY for joining us remotely.
Announcements:
Attendees: (with links to ScratchEd user profiles)
Cyntia Barzelatto
Christine Beltran
Sandra Bleecker
Dana Cantor
Steven Connelly
Janet Dee
George Daukantas
Maria DeCicco
Svetlana Grinshpan
Raquel Jimenez
Lorraine Leo
Kathleen Martell
Michael McLaughlin
Natalie Paine
Yoonah Park
Wilhelmina Peragine
Carmelo Presicce
Stephen Richards
Soo Jung Roh
Maheen Sahoo
Adam Scharfenberger
Tatiana Shevchenko
Rosemary Slattery
Richard Smyth
Barbara Tennyson
Sabita Verma
Daniel Watt
Recap:
Networking and Scheduling: After an informal gathering around our “food table” with coffee, juice, fruit, and bagels, we introduced ourselves and shared what we were thinking about on our way to the meetup. There was an overwhelming consensus that people were excited about learning more about Scratch as well as learning how educators are using it in their classrooms and other venues. Others were just pleased that it was a beautiful day in Cambridge.
All 25 of us then contributed a collection of post-it notes with topic requests. Adam and Barbara accepted the challenge of grouping the notes and created our agenda for the day.
Breakout Sessions: Two sets of 45 minute sessions were planned. In the first session we held a Google Hangout with the ScratchEd Meetup concurrently being held in Lexington, KY. (Janet and Leanna had “planned” this ahead of time.) A big thank you to Maheen for starting the hangout and providing the tech confidence. We enjoyed hanging out on a Saturday morning with wonderful educators from Kentucky. Rosemary and Adam led a hands-on introduction to Scratch with a maze project and a pen tool project. Richard brought his Hangman project for help and inspiration. The group had great discussions around computer science content. The Scratch projects were very popular and many continued to work on them through the second session. Carmelo helped Barbara and Willa try out the Little Bits with Scratch. Lorraine led a group looking at ways Scratch can make global connections.
Lunch Discussions: The enthusiastic conversations continued over lunch. We shared some projects and announcements (see below).
Shout Outs: Our Harvard Interns who joined us today. Carmelo from the MIT Media Lab LLKG for his help with the Little Bits. Leanne Prater and all the educators from Lexington KY for joining us remotely.
Announcements:
- You can follow ScratchEdTeam on Instagram and Twitter (@scratchedteam)
- Europe code week was held last week. Find resources at codeweek.eu
- Everyone is encouraged to join the CSTA Greater Boston group to receive information about workshops, job postings, and much more.
- Here are the links to the Hangman projects: Hangman by rsmyth, and Thinking about Hangman by ssbb.
- Here is the link to the Scratch Meetup Maze by rslattery529
- Our meetup schedule for the year is set. To find the dates and to register go to our Eventbrite page. Our next meetup is November 7.
