Story Board and Rough Draft

My game is called Newton Knows Best.  Students learn Newton's Laws of Motion by matching the laws to their definitions.  I am still working on the game.  I plan to work on changing the other law sprites by having them say incorrect when they are clicked after the question is asked.


Here is my story board.

Here is my rough draft.

Scratch Game Ideas

I learned so much from the three tutorials.  I had some problems with downloading the attachments for the maze, but I got the general idea of how to create one.  Like I have said before, I would like to create a game that I can use at work for my student workshops.  But I think I could use a pac-man type of game and incorporate math problems and science concepts to move on to different levels.  

DEJ #7

Why should programming be part of school curriculum?

"In addition, there is also a high volume of projects being
created over the summer months (especially in June and July of 2006) in
the absence of extensive mentoring support. We interpret this as an indication
of the extended and prolonged impact that mentoring support can have
on a programming culture beyond (or at least temporarily beyond) the
weekly visits of the mentors."
　
Many school systems are worried that students lose the content they learned in the previous school year over their summer break. This proves that using different technologies in the classroom can increase interest in content and retention of content, even over the summer months. Today's generations spend a large amount of time playing video games, so if teachers use them in the classroom, the students can still be learning while having fun outside of the classroom.

What are the barriers to implementing programming in schools?

"Researchers like Rogers (1995) have distinguished different phases from
adoption which describes the selection of a technology to diffusion that refers
to more wide-spread use and, finally, integration that illustrates acceptance
in the community of practice."
　
Some older generations fear the implementation of technology. This is one of many barriers that school systems face when implementing technology, especially implementing programming into the classroom. The school system needs the approval of the community. Other factors that effect implementation of programming is money to fund the program and to pay certifiied technology teachers, which are limited.

How can barriers to implementing programming in schools be overcome?

"Realizing that simply providing access to programming
software would be insufficient, we created opportunities for
Clubhouse members to interact with adult mentors who were learning to
program as well."

One of the barriers that school systems have to face to implement programming is finding teachers that have experience with programming. Hopefully, school systems can utilize college interns to mentor young students. Not only have these mentors grown up in a technologically savoy society, but they are at an age that the students will relate to.

DEJ #6

“By introducing media arts practices, we are trying to broaden our view of literacy practices to describe the ways in which individuals use literacy and learn to be literate within the specific context of new media.”

We know that today’s students use a variety of technology in their everyday lives.  If we can teach literacy in a way that is relevant to them, I think they will better understand the concept.  Our previous article mentioned incorporating more creative thinking skills into the curriculum, so by introducing media arts practices we can achieve this. 

“Programming in this context is less about code and more about creativity or personal expression.”

I believe a lot of students shy away from computer programming careers because of learning to code.  It is complex and hard to understand for most people.  We need to show our students the creative side to programming.  I was afraid of computer programming until I learned about scratch.  Scratch allowed me to be able to be creative in an easier way. 

“Brandy’s case illustrates that computation can be used as a way to tell stories or to create personally meaningful artwork in the case of the birthday card.  Computation is also a learned skill that becomes useful as youth, even those like Brandy that are unable to read, can use for creative production.”

There are a lot of students like Brandy that teachers have to deal with everyday.  They may or may not come from a troubled home and have learning problems on top of that.  I think these troubled students would be more willing to try when they can be creative and show others how to do something.  They feel smart and important. 

Peppler, K., & Kafai, Y. (n.d.). Collaboration, computation, and creativity: media arts practices in urban youth culture. (University of California in Los Angeles)Retrieved from https://online.fairmontstate.edu/webct/urw/lc15057011.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct

http://www.meadahs.org/about/mission.jsp

Media Arts and Entertainment Design Academy High School in Los Angeles is a school that prepares all students for entrance into and graduation from a four-year college or university and provides a rigorous and personalized, standards-based curriculum in a supportive environment that nurtures students professional interests while building their character for success in an ever evolving and challenging global community.  This school has high expectations for all students and believes that all students can produce high quality work. 

Media arts and entertainment design academy high school . (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.meadahs.org/about/mission.jsp