Welcome to another post devoted to learning in the 21st Century. As you may know I have several series posts I am writing at the current time. They include Digital Curriculum, Project Based Learning, and Website Evaluation. This post is a third in a series of posts dedicated to Games in Education. To celebrate this game series I am giving away a Lenovo ThinkCentre M90 23 inch touch screen all-in-one computer. This contest is open to any adult educator ( any adult involved in the education of students) anywhere in the world. ! Contest ends Wednesday, May 4, 2011. Just find two games or share what you may already be using. When you are ready, click on the contest link below and I wish you the very best! Now lets take a look at how students can use Scratch to make a game to fit any curriculum. Have a great week! – Mike
Games In Education…. Creating With MIT’s Scratch
When was the last time you got a good smell of a Crayola Crayon? It really doesn’t matter the color! Just the scent will turn on the imaginative juices possibly lost since Kindergarten! Or perhaps you remember the hours you spent with Tinker Toys. An adventure filled with a constant flow of unchecked time building, tweaking, and tinkering! Then there was the Easy Bake Oven. A true childhood dream of combining, remixing, and creating. The brilliant inventors at MIT’s Life long Kindergarten Group have found a way to repackage, reinvent, and integrate these same concepts and come up with an ingenious package called Scratch. It is a mix of on-line experiences, computer programing, animation, game creation, multi media, fine arts, science, social studies, language arts, math, and collaboration. The best place to start learning about Scratch is visiting the Scratch Site at MIT yourself. The key to making Scratch work for kids is giving them the key. You will find them way ahead of you with in a week as they program, collaborate, design, and even work from home. After all it is free and more importantly, engaging! Your job will be to facilitate, guide, inspire, and challenge as they explore worlds that allow them to learn, create, and share. Don’t have Scratch? Then click Download. This area is exactly what you would expect… a place to register and download the program for free! Program is available for Windows, Macs, and Linux operating systems. Kids can even download with out giving out any information!
In this post I wish to emphasize how Scratch can be used to allow students to create their own games! While at the Scratch MIT site, you may wish to see what is offered in game making. There are tutorials such as this popular game making lesson. Perhaps you want to look at examples people have made in this game gallery. Remember, Scratch is based on creating, sharing, and remixing! Let your students examine and remix what others have shared in the gallery. Not to be missed is another site filled with a wonderful set of tutorials. At LearnScratch.Org you will find a special set of gaming tutorials that will get your students programing before you know it.You may wish to check out how to make Pac Man in this engaging two part tutorial. Perhaps your students want to learn about Pong or learn the art of making a bee maze or or a simple maze. I find it hard to believe that LearnScratch.Org is really free, but then so is Scratch! Another great resource for ideas is from a site supported by AMD called My Club My Life. At this site you will find a large supply of video lessons and information sheets. Please be aware of copyright posted on the site and seek permission if reproducing materials. Does making an adventure game in space sound interesting? Then check out these 18 engaging lessons based on creating a game taking place beyond the planet Earth. This tutorial using Scratch, allows students to create a complex game and includes all the needed material that can be easily downloaded. In the process students learn how to program with Scratch and get an idea for real game design.
Want to learn more about Scratch? Feel free to download my free Scratch Webinar entitled Learn, Create, and Innovate with Scratch! at the Siemens Discovery Education Stem Academy. Also, feel free to check out a Scratch Resource Page I have created at my 21centuryedtech Wiki. I am sure through investigation that you will see how Scratch wiln get your student into the world of gaming and beyond!
Thanks for joining me for another journey aimed at 21st century learning. Don’t miss an upcoming article I am sure you will enjoy. In it… I will explore alternatives to the popular, but soon to disappear, Flip camera.! Please take a moment to subscribe to this blog by RSS or email. You can also follow me on Twitter at mjgormans. Remember to enter the contest for the computer give away. I will be sharing all your gaming suggestions in a later post. Speaking of sharing, please take amount to pass this article on to others by using the retweet button below. Until next time… enjoy getting your students in the game! – Mike
21 st Century Educational Technology and Learning 
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Thanks for the link and read – Mike