Monday, January 28, 2013

Video Game creation for learning!

Throughout the school year, students create PowerPoints, Prezis, Digital Stories, Posters, etc...why not create a video game?

My daughter has a teacher who does an excellent job differentiating for the needs of her students. Thus when Bailey showed an interest in electricity and compacting through the unit, she allowed her to create a video game to help her classmates review for the test. 

Scratch Project

Needless to say, she earned a 100% on the final unit test and she  new the content forward and backward. In the process of creating the game, she really had to "know her stuff!"

Her classmates had a lot of fun reviewing with the game and test scores were higher than normal for the entire class! Many students now want to learn how to create these games. 




Wednesday, January 23, 2013

A website that is "GOLDEN!"

Came across a "GOLDEN" website full of resources!


A lot of great resources and has a curriculum that you can download. Please pass this one along!

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Welcome to K-8 educational programming!

I've finally decided to split my blog so that I could focus on providing resources, ideas and materials for those interested in K-8 computer programming. I keep hearing that we are not generating any interest in this topic, however...I am hoping that there are more of you out there that are attempting to incorporate the skills of computational thinking and programming into your core curriculum. 

http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/heidi_STRETCh/3048296
I have just finished creating a template for teachers to use in creating a realistic Family Feud type of game that will allow their students to play on the web. For those of you familiar with Scratch, this should be pretty easy.

For those "newbies," I have created a document that provides you will step-by-step directions on which seven programming blocks you need to change to create your own questions and answers. Click on the game and feel free to download and use in your own classroom!

If you would like the directions, you can find them here:

My goal is to post at least two/three new resources each week. Also...check out the K-8 programming playground at:
    
Feel free to follow along on my journey! Your STRETCh Instructor - www.stretchinstructor.com