Can Scratch helps to improve creativity? In this research I've found Scratch could help to develop creativity

Ignite Talk. Scratch conference in Barcelona

(July 26, 2013)

 

Good morning everyone, I’m Jon Bustillo from Basque Country University and I want to share with you some research I did using Scrtach. First I meet with Scrtach reading some articles from LifeLong Kindergarten research group. Then I participated in a Scratch workshop where it was explained tht Scratch could help to improve creativity.

 

Creative thinking is one of the most important skills for the citizens of the twenty first century but the educational system today doesn’t help to develope it. It destroys it !!! So, can Scratch Really help to improve creativity? I tried to find answers by differentes means, using internet, printed materials and also talked with people from Scratch community. Eventually, I decided to conduct new research on this subjet. Having decided on the subject of my research, the next step was to develop the plan.

 

The first part was to define a good environment for this research. What should this be? A place where,

• People are highly controlled

• No free access to multimedia

• Few opportunities to be creative

PRISON !!!! a good environment for this research.

 

What interested me was not only measuring the creative thinking, but also I wanted to know what would be the thinking process for learning Scratch. So, I designed an educational ethnography in which I was a participative researcher. Sixteen prisoners decided to participate voluntarily in the research but only 20% believed they could design a videogame.

 

I designed a workshop which spanned 25 days, normally more than two hours per day. We started working with Scatch and agreed with them to have an exhibition day in the prison. The first part of this process was for me to demonstrated videogames I designed. The second stage was for us to design videogames together, and the last stage was to design their own videogames. All the information I collected was not only from differents instruments, but also from different reporters.

 

About the results,

• 80% rated the experience of working with Scrtach as “very good”. They really enjoyed it !!!

• 81% continued thinking about improving their videogames after the class had finished. They had engaged with their Scratch creations

• Prison psychologist and educators reported that prisoners showed different thinking patterns. In fact, their behaviour changed adapting better to their situation.

• The GAP between what they wanted to happen in their videogames and what really happens, showed mistakes that are a powerful learning opportunity.

• A statistically significant increase in the creative thinking. It improve by 85%

 

In conclusion, I can now say that having worked with Scratch, it can has a positive influence over creativity, the mistakes become a learning opportunity and designing videogames can engage people from all parts of society.

 

Now I am repeating the experience in another prison to confirm this results. At this moment, the results are quite similar.

If you are interested to learn more about this research, please contact me