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As students create interactive stories, games and animations with Scratch they are automatically exposed to mathematical and computational ideas and concepts. Unlike traditional methods of teaching mathematics that can often seem pointless and irrelevant to students, Scratch provides a fun and meaningful way of learning mathematics. For example, when students control the speed of an animation, or keep score in a game they are creating in Scratch, they are learning about variables (Resnick, 2007). This is just one example of how Scratch makes mathematics more meaningful and motivating for students as they see it being used in a relevant context.

All projects created in Scratch expose students to a certain degree of mathematical concepts, however Scratch can be used to take mathematics even further (check out these galleries filled with math projects: http://scratch.mit.edu/galleries/view/6423 & http://scratch.mit.edu/galleries/view/134), and also to enhance other learning areas (see 'Its Use in the Languages Classroom'). Students can be given specific criteria and then create their own projects or teachers can develop projects in Scratch for students to use to enhance the teaching and learning of a topic. 

Scratch is a simple-to-use programming software, allowing students to be instantly successful when creating their own interactive games, stories and animations. It allows students to feel successful as learners and requires problem solving, collaboration and co-teaching.

How Scratch can be used in the classroom:

- Interactive games
- Storytelling
- Interactive projects
- Music projects
- Animations
- Programming concepts
- Basic introduction to Electronics and Technics (when using Scratch Sensor Boards)

Scratch Example: Spellrite - by jeffb

This is great example of how Scratch can be used to enhance learning in the Primary classroom. Here, a teacher has created a project in Scratch to help students with special needs learn to type and spell basic words. This type of project can be developed from scratch or downloaded and modified to be used in the classroom. This concept could also be used for students in the Early Years to help them learn to spell and type basic words.

The 'Creative Thinking Spiral' (Resnick, 2007) 

Mitch Resnick (2007) highlights how important it is for people to develop as creative thinkers to survive in today’s Creative Society. Today, technology changes at such a pace that it is essential for people to develop as creative thinkers. At the same time, many of these new technologies, such as Scratch, can help people develop these creative thinking skills to better prepare them for today’s creative society (Resnick, 2007).  

Scratch was developed with the main goal of helping people develop into creative thinkers. It supports the process of the ‘creative thinking spiral’, where people can imagine what they want to create, create their project, play with their creation, share their project and ideas with the rest of the world, and reflect on their experiences, which then leads them back to the beginning of the spiral as they start imagining new ideas and creations (Resnick, 2007).

Click HERE to view Mitch Resnick's paper 'Sowing the Seeds for a More Creative Society'.

Gardner's Multiple Intelligences (Gardner, 1993)

Scratch can enhance learning and teaching by tapping into the multiple intelligences in the classroom:

Benefits of Scratch

- Open-source software (free to download and available for anyone to use)
- Attractive and user-friendly interface
- Scratch is a "Low floor" programming language; meaning it is easy for novices to get started (Resnick & Silverman, 2005)
- Scratch is said to have "Wide walls"; which means there is room for students to explore and expand (Resnick & Silverman, 2005). For example, Scratch sensor boards allow students to explore further by controlling their sprites from the real-world (see Bill Kerr's comments on Scratch sensor boards http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2008/06/scratch-sensor-board.html). 

Potential Challenges or Barriers when Using Scratch in the Classroom

- "Low Ceilings"; meaning once you reach a certain point, Scratch has its limitations 
   For example, Scratch does not support the following programming features: data structures (arrays, etc.), procedures and functions, recursion, inheritance, defining classes of objects, exception handling, parameter passing and return values, text input, and file input/output.
- Concern of plagiarism; Students can easily download and use other peoples' Scratch projects and claim them as their own. This needs to be monitored by teachers; if teacher's observe how students are going with their Scratch projects it should be obvious when the work is not their own. One way of avoiding this potential challenge is to avoid promoting the Scratch website to students until their projects are completed. However, there are many benefits of promoting the scratch website for resources, tutorials, ideas and techniques so this should be left up to the individual teacher. 

References

Gardner, H. (1993). Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. New York: Basic Books.

Resnick, M. & Silverman, B. (2005). Some Reflections on Designing Construction Kits for Kids, Accessed at http://llk.media.mit.edu/papers/IDC-2005.pdf, 22 October 2008

Resnick, M. (2007). Learning with Scratch, Lifelong Kindergarten Group, MIT Media Lab 

Resnick, M. (2007). Sowing the Seeds for a More Creative Society, Learning and Leading with Technology, December/January 2007-08, pp 18- 22
Accessed at http://web.media.mit.edu/~mres/papers/Learning-Leading-final.pdf, 3 October 2008