Reflections on Scratch Educator Meetup @ MIT: Saturday, March 10, 2012

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

Here is a recap and some reflections from the event:

Attendees
Below is a list of the 27 attendees who were present at the meetup on Saturday:

• John Bottoms
• Lawrence Burns
• Jesse Campbell
• Nancy Cook Smith
• Nancy Cooperider
• Suzanne Courtney
• Janet Dee
• Kate Farb-Johnson
• John Gomes
• Ingrid Gustafson
• Shaleen Jain
• Janice Kowalczyk
• Lorraine Leo
• Helen Mastico
• Carmen Mendes
• Sonal Patel
• Robin Peaslee
• Andrea Plate
• Rosemary Slattery
• Alex Vaughn
• Eileen Vaughn
• Diana Weidenbacker
• Karen Brennan
• Michelle Chung
• Mylo Lam
• Jen Lavalle
• Aaron Morris

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

Recap

• Networking: Speed Dating - In order to help participants meet new people, Karen facilitated a speed dating activity at the beginning of the meetup.
• Breakout Sessions: Block A  - There were many proposals for breakout sessions ideas, so the group decided to organize two blocks of 30-minute sessions. The first block included a session about Scratch with young kids led by Ingrid, a hands-on design challenge facilitated by Rosemary, and a discussion around Scratch for CS led by John Bottoms.
• Breakout Sessions: Block B - The second round of breakout sessions included a session to offer feedback about the Scratch curriculum guide facilitated by Karen, a discussion about Scratch community management led by Aaron, a table discussion with Kate to brainstorm design challenges for building capacities in Scratch, and a group led by Janet around Scratch as a summative assessment and for core curriculum integration. 
• Photos on Flickr - View photos from the event on the ScratchEd Flickr page.

Show & Tell

• Scratch Online Course - John and Larry presented an introductory four-week Moodle online course for teachers that they have developed with resources from Scratch and ScratchEd.
• Goals Project using Scratch as a Presentation Tool - Janet shared one way of using Scratch as presentation tool where ninth grade students created Scratch projects to express their goals for the next school year.
• Puzzles as Scratch Projects - John demonstrated how translating puzzles into Scratch could help facilitate math learning. He then talked about a new device being distributed in the UK called Raspberry Pi that includes Scratch.
• Digital Media and Learning Conference (DML) - Ingrid shared some of her notes and reflections from attending the DML 2012 Conference in San Francisco, California.
• Special Interest Group for Computer Science Education Conference (SIGCSE) - Michelle shared updates and an anecdote from her experiences at the SIGCSE 2012 Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina.
• Scratch Day - Jen talked all things Scratch Day. She explained what Scratch Day is and encouraged meetup participants to plan an event or to consider attending the Scratch Day event at MIT.
• Scratch and Environmental Education - Shaleen presented a project that his masters students are working on. In the context of environmental education, the group has developed handouts to support elementary students' learning of computational concepts through Scratch.
• World Friends Project - Lorraine shared a unique Scratch project that combines interactive sprites created by her students and those of other classrooms in Japan, Russia, Hong Kong, and Australia.

You can view videos of all the Show & Tell presentations from the meetup at http://scratched.media.mit.edu/resources/scratch-educator-show-tell-videos-march-2012-meetup

Upcoming Dates and Events

• Next meetup: Saturday, April 7, 10am to 1pm. - http://apr2012meetup.eventbrite.com
• Next webinar: Wednesday, March 28 at 7pm EDT - http://scratchedwebinarmar2012.eventbrite.com
• Find out more about future events on our Events page.

Please feel free to share your notes and reflections from the meetup as comments below. We hope to meet up with you again soon!