Technologies for Creative Learning

Victoria, Kumiko, Florence, and Amos provide reflections and questions on this week's readings about communities of learners. Please post your response by Monday at 5pm, and add at least one follow-up comment (on someone else's response) by end of day Tuesday.

It's fine to keep the posts short (just a couple of paragraphs). What's most important is communicating your ideas clearly.

For this week's activity, you were asked to find three examples of how the Scratch website is designed to support collaboration.

In class, we'll be discussing our experiences with this activity. For each example, we will discuss: (1) how it fosters and encourages collaborations, (2) what are the limitations, (3) how it could be extended or enhanced. What new features could further enhance collaboration on the Scratch website?

Jenn, Pol, and Huang provide reflections and questions on this week's readings about tangible learning. Please post your response by Monday at 5pm, and add at least one follow-up comment (on someone else's response) by end of day Tuesday.

It's fine to keep the posts short (just a couple of paragraphs). What's most important is communicating your ideas clearly.

For this week's activity, you were asked to create a personally-meaningful tangible interface with a Scratch Sensor Board.

For help setting up and experimenting with the board, check out the Pico Board site, which includes a Getting Started Guide. As part of the setup process, you'll need to install a driver.

To document your Scratch Board project, we'd like you to create an additional Scratch project that includes photos of your Scratch Board project -- and your process of creating it.

Please upload both of your Scratch projects (the Scratch Board project and the documentation project) to the Scratch website. Please include links to both of the projects as a comment.

If you'd like to see examples from last year, check out Amon's project page.

In class, we'll be sharing our experiences with the activity. How did these experiences (and your experiences with the WeDo) shape your understandings of the connection between the physical and the virtual?

Lass and Marie provide reflections and questions on this week's readings about new media literacy. Please post your response by Monday at 5pm, and add at least one follow-up comment (on someone else's response) by end of day Tuesday.

It's fine to keep the posts short (just a couple of paragraphs). What's most important is communicating your ideas clearly.

For this week's activity, you were asked to create a gallery on the Scratch website with at least 10 projects related to a theme you are interested in.

To create a gallery of 10 projects:

1. Sign in to your Scratch account
2. Create a new gallery
3. Find a project you're interested in
4. Click on the "Add to a gallery" link beneath the project
5. Check the box next to your new gallery
6. Repeat steps 2 through 5
7. Add a link to your gallery to the class blog as a comment

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to email either of us.

In class, we'll be sharing our experiences with the activity. How did your experiences connect with new media literacies?

In your role as facilitators for the week, you start by posting questions about the readings on the class blog, to provoke discussion on the blog among other class members. Please post your questions no later than Friday at 5pm.

For the class itself on Wednesday, you’ll coordinate group activity and discussion for the first hour of class. You could invite a provocative speaker, organize a debate, facilitate small group discussions, or introduce a game. What would make a compelling learning experience for class participants? What experiences would you want to have in the course? This is an opportunity to deepen understandings of the readings, while being playful and experimental with the design of a learning environment.

We’re happy to support you as much as you prefer in preparation for your role as facilitator. Feel free to write to either of us with your facilitation ideas – or with requests for facilitation ideas. We’d like to get a draft of your plan no later than Tuesday at noon, so that we know that Wednesday’s class is ready and can provide you with some feedback.

For this week's activity, you were asked to create a story that combines on-screen and off-screen, using LEGO WeDo and Scratch.

To help you get started, here's a Scratch/WeDo miniguide and a collection of WeDo building instructions:

• Dancing Birds
• Smart Spinner
• Drumming Monkey
• Hungry Alligator
• Roaring Lion
• Flying Bird
• Goal Kicker
• Goal Keeper
• Cheerful Fans
• Airplane Rescue
• Giant Escape
• Sailboat Storm

We're also organizing a Scratch/WeDo office hour in the Cube (Room 001, in the basement of the Media Lab). If you're interested, the session will take place on Tuesday, September 22 from 4pm to 6pm.

In class, we'll be sharing our Scratch/WeDo creations and our experiences with the activity. Some questions to think about:

• How did working with WeDo change your experience of working with Scratch?
• How did working with others change your experience?

Mitch Resnick and Karen Brennan provide reflections and questions on this week's readings about the Learning Sciences. Please post your response by Monday at 5pm, and add at least one follow-up comment (on someone else's response) by end of day Tuesday.

For this week's activity, you were asked to create a Scratch project to introduce yourself, and to add the project to the class gallery on the Scratch website by end of day Tuesday (Sept 15).

To add your project to the gallery:

• Create an account on the Scratch website.
• From the Share menu in the Scratch application, select the Share this project online menu item.
• Once your project is online, visit the class gallery and click Add my project.

In class, we'll be discussing our experiences with this activity. Some questions to think about:

• As you created the project, what was most surprising? What was most difficult?
• Reflect on the process of creating your Scratch project, using the framework of the creative learning spiral (described in the Resnick paper).
• What resources did you use in learning Scratch and creating your project (tutorials, other people, etc.)?
• What do you think you learned from this experience?