Reflections on Scratch Educator Meetup @ MIT: Saturday, April 7, 2012

Thanks to everyone who was able to join us at the April 2012 Scratch Educator Meetup!

Here is a recap and some reflections from the event:

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

• Caitlin Browne
• John Bottoms
• Lawrence Burns
• Jesse Campbell
• Thomas Farrell
• John Gomes
• Ingrid Gustafson
• Joseph Kess
• Lorraine Leo
• Timothy May
• Carmen Mendes
• Colin Meltzer
• Chris Myers
• Rosemary Slattery
• Karen Brennan
• Michelle Chung
• Vanity Gee
• Vanessa Gennarelli
• Mylo Lam
• Jen Lavalle
• Aaron Morris
• Monica Oliver
• Alexander Schoenfeld

To connect with people you met, click on a name above to leave a message on their profile page.

Recap

• Networking: Speed Dating - The meetup started with a speed networking activity. To facilitate the conversation, we asked participants to share with their partner one thing that they hoped to learn or figure out at the meetup.
• Breakout Sessions: Discussions - During a quick brainstorming session, the group collectively decided on four breakout sessions. Three were discussions led by different attendees: strategies for getting students started with Scratch led by Caitlin, implementation and teaching strategies for Scratch educators facilitated by Aaron, and advanced topics with Ingrid
• Breakout Session: Hands-On with Scratch - The fourth breakout session was a hands-on design challenge around variables with Karen and Mylo. Participants were challenged to design a Scratch project where a character moved around and collected items on the screen to increase the score. Individuals were first given time to tackle the challenge on their own or in pairs, and then the group discussed and shared different approaches used. For example, check out John's final project and here's another example from Vanessa, Mylo, and Jesse.
• Photos on Flickr - View photos from the event on the ScratchEd Flickr page.

Show & Tell

• Scratch Online Course - John described an introductory Scratch Moodle course that he and Larry are offering to educators.
• About Me Student Projects - Carmen presented About Me project drafts created by two of her students.
• Pencil Sharpener Project - Jesse shared  his pencil sharpener project that was inspired from the March meetup's pencil challenge breakout session.
• Myers Learning - Chris spoke about his Denver-basd company, Myers Learning, that offers after-school enrichment classes and summer camps around Scratch.
• Easter Egg Hunt Project - Timothy showed an egg hunt project he created for his son just in time for Easter. Hint: the first secret code is "m".
  

Resources and Upcoming Events

• Scratch 2.0 Preview: March 2012 Webinar - http://scratched.media.mit.edu/resources/march-2012-scratched-webinar
• Next meetup: Saturday, May 5, 10am to 1pm. - http://may2012meetup.eventbrite.com
• Next webinar: Wednesday, April 25 at 7pm EDT - http://scratchedwebinarapr2012.eventbrite.com
• Find out more about future events on our Events page.

What did you think of the meetup? Please share your notes and reflections as comments below. We hope to meet up with you again soon!