Reflection on Scratch

At the beginning of working on the scratch project, I thought that this was a waste of my time.  I didn't see the educational value of figuring out how to place the different sprites on the screen in order for my "game" to do what I wanted to do.  Before seeking help from Dr. Boyer, I was clueless on what to do with this program.  After first meeting with Dr. Boyer, I was able to get the general idea of how the project worked.  I spent countless of time fussing with the program, and looking at other students projects to try to figure out how to sequence my own project.  I can honestly say that this is the most time and effort I have put into a project.  It was so disappointed when I had my roommate test out my game, which only lasted about 30 seconds at first, and getting to the end and saying "that was it?".  Mostly because it took me many hours to just get that 30 seconds of gaming.  However eventually this project became much easier to complete, however tedious.  It takes a long time developing a game that goes through many different levels of division.

I feel that just because I disliked doing the assignment, I should just throw away the tool all together.  I think it would be cool to see what my students can come up and create with the program.  Sometimes students are motivated to work with projects that require a higher level of thinking.  I think I would offer this as an extra credit assignment on to my curriculum until I got familiar with all the different things you could do with the program.  Maybe eventually I would be able to require my students to create their own game for the class.  This then would create a large library of different scratch projects.  I also would allow students who may be interested in web design/game designing to show learning through this program.

Overall I am very satisfied with my scratch project. It took a lot of work to accomplish, however this is most likely how my students will feel when they are faced with a challenging task. If I want my students to work hard on a project and put forth their best effort, I must do the same.  Just because I didn't like the program, doesn't mean that I should dismiss the project all together.