Learning Creative Learning

I am eager to start this free course tomorrow with Mitch Resnick and the Lifelong Kindergarten group at MIT Media Lab. I’m a long time fan of Dr. Resnick and continue to teach Scratch as a core coding unit in the middle school.

The book, Lifelong Kindergarten, has been a joy to read. I could not agree more with the critical importance of the four tenants promoted in the book; Projects, Passion, Peers, and Play. As my 6th and 7th graders explore Scratch this trimester, their projects demonstrate how an open-ended, creative programming platform can motivate students to build such incredible work literally from scratch, pun intended. They can apply their artistic skills through the sprites (characters) they design. They can use their story-telling skills or their gaming skills depending on the project’s focus. They can work with sounds, animation, and digital art to bring a project to life.

Beyond the screen, Scratch can interact with the physical world too. Next trimester, the 7th graders will program Hummingbird robotics through Scratch in our Robot Petting Zoo unit. As we dive deeper into projects that revolve around physical computing, Scratch 3.0 is sure to play a crucial role in the coming year.

Are you enrolled in Learning Creative Learning? Have you taken the course in the past? I’d love to hear what you think.