I spent quite a bit of time this week working with fifth graders using Scratch. I had a great time, and so, it seems, did they. Ms. Arvig's class decided to blog about it in fact. Their comments are overwhelmingly positive. The amazing thing to me is that while they clearly had fun, they also learned some important skills like logical reasoning, problem solving, and creative thinking. As they get better at using Scratch, it can be a tool for math (program your sprite to create a shape or to follow a pattern), language arts (recreate a scene from a story, write your own story), social studies (create a scene from history), art, music, technology, and more. I hope to continue working with classes on this, and I hope teachers will continue to bring their students to the lab to work on projects like this.
I posted before about metamorphosing in an evolving world. I want to revisit this idea. It has been bothering me that change seems to come so slow. There are many reasons for this, including leadership, state testing, resistance to change, resources, etc... But despite all of these factors, I truly believe that we can bring about more significant change. I'm not talking about technology, so much as I am talking about rethinking what we teach. While I see many teachers evolving (including myself), I think we are too painfully slow for the kinds of changes that need to take place. Photo by Morti Riuuallon http://www.flickr.com/photos/ultimorollo/2520525316/ The best way for us to metamorphose is to follow the example of the butterfly. The caterpillar starts by eating constantly. We, as teachers, need to consume information as if our future depended upon it. It does. We are becoming obsolete and our only chance of remaining relevant into the future is to understand it and adapt to i
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