Conclusions Scratch and ICT CoP - Conclusions We started presenting Scratch and asking teachers to present themselves. Several teachers, mainly teaching on secondary schools (Physics and Chemistry, Mathematics, Geography, Science, Technology), but also primary teachers talked about their previous experiences. Some teachers never used Scratch before but were willing to experiment, others already knew it and talked about it to students. Two teachers experimented with students during the first week and reported that kids reacted very well to the activities. Most consider that Scratch as a programming language can give a good contribution to learning In the dialogue we stated that in different countries there are big differences in approaches to ICT integration in the curriculum. Some make it an obligatory subject, others leave it to chance, others also have documents but then, no way or enough resources to control what is being done, so each teacher does how it pleases him. And constraints are sometimes a consequence of those options (global ones and school ones). Some constraints that were mentioned on first week were: ● Lack of time ● No computers available ● Lack of skills even if there are enough computers ● “Slow tool” (as in, needed more time to get to take the most out of it and get deeper in advance programming) But there were reported also the strengths of the tool: ● Low floor (easy entry) and all new features ● Intuitive to use ● Motivating in the first contact ● Interesting examples to inspire work ● Kids can teach us After week one we focused on trying to get some ideas on how to introduce Scratch to students in educational contexts as well as find some strategies to explore it with them. With all the shared contributions, we agreed to the fact that age/grade matters in deciding what to do and how to plan the introduction, but we also identified some common things that could be present in the initial approaches with all students - To show a selection of finished projects to motivate students saying that they will get to build their own works (and including diversity in that sharing, so they don’t get a limited idea). - To invest time presenting it to students and helping them growing into the skills to control it. Some part of work can be done at home (and involve family) but students must understand the purpose of it in the classroom and see it integrated with other activities and curriculum to value it With smaller kids more time is needed to explore Scratch in a more free way and more contents will emerge from that exploitation (since they are at the beginning of their learning) and it is also good to engage in activities without computer to learn how to communicate instructions to another person (Scratch Curriculum Guide from MIT has many interesting lesson plans that can help building/adapting strategies) With older kids (from end of primary school forward, it’s also important that students know that they are learning to program, so it is important to discuss it with them. It is important to progress from more simple tasks to more complex ones. It is crutial to have some tasks and challenges to guide work and those tasks can be related to curriculum subjects (when you are, for instance, teaching particular subjects). And it will be important that students get to share their work with others in the class, and receive feedbacks from peers, teacher and experts (after publishing online). Another interesting idea was to put older students to teach younger ones or even students teach teachers and adults in general. There are experiences already done with great results. Some links were shared to documents and projects that can help teachers build their strategies, and after the contribution of one teacher about her interest in educational robotics we tried to leave also some links to works that permit to connect Scratch and robotics as a strategy to enhance STEM education. Mirta’s sentence alerted us all too a very important question that must be kept in our thoughts: “I think that we, teachers, work under heavy pressure of tests and curriculum agenda and forget that our duty is also to encourage our students to be creative and think ‘out of the box’ “ We also have talked about the potential of Scratch in promoting connections between subjects and also the possibility to enrich the building of projects with Scratch combining tools and different kinds of media, seeking for diversity, integration and better learning in all educational contexts and curricular areas. Several teachers shared some of their first experiences with scratch with students and the general feelings of those who engaged in experimenting is good and they desire to continue. During all CoP, the global feeling was positive and some ideas already emerged from crossing the work with this tool between countries on eTwinning and Comenius programs. Some examples were shared in order to show that scratch is a STEM tool in the sense programming is a STEM activity, but we can combine all kinds of knowledge with it. So, even if you are telling a story, making a game or preparing presentations, beside all competences linked to the subject, we are always working math, technology, science (posing questions, trying to anticipate answers, solving problems, reasoning, communicating...). Stories, presentations, games, animations can be about all kind of subjects (poetry, history, geography, foreigner languages... whatever theme you want. To the question “do we have to specifically use STEM themes, or they emerge always when working with Scratch?” We seemed to agree that the two perspectives have a place. STEM emerges naturally, but of course it is important to take advantage on that and work STEM trough it. So, yes, at a time, we can use Scratch and make connections between STEM themes, or, trough connections between other kind of themes, make STEM emerge. There are no rigid ways or paths. Our goals define the strategy we choose. Teachers thoughts and sharing showed clearly the diversity of uses and ideas to implement Scratch activities into curriculum and classroom. Scratch is flexible and its approaches are different, of course, depending on students age or curricular areas, or even teachers style and methodologies. And that may be the most important conclusion: Scratch has a place in all kind of activities, we only need to plan strategies adapting them to make the most of the tool in the contexts we work. Being so, we think is worth trying to use it, or at least present it to students and involve families and home working so we can extend the time of use and its benefits. And Scratch as also a great value in optional/extra-curricular activities. Freedom can permit teacher to free from the curriculum pressure and use those times as a research laboratory, learning about the use of Scratch in different contexts. Globally, all participants considered this CoP very useful, and many stated that they have gain new insights into the using of this tool. Many teachers already started to use it with students and even sharing all this work with families and colleagues thus stimulating the spreading of seeds and opening more opportunities for more students and schools to use it and so engage directly and indirectly in STEM education. With the use of this tool (in combinations with others), most teachers believe that they can get students more motivated to the areas of Science, Technology and Mathematics.
