Read more about the article Scratch – the Coding Platform for Young People with Inbuilt Creativity and …. Community!
Mitch Resnick, MIT MediaLab Lifelong Kindergarten Group

Scratch – the Coding Platform for Young People with Inbuilt Creativity and …. Community!

A quick report from the International Scratch Conference: “The Next Generation” – Massachusetts Institute of Technology, July 2018

Ciarán and Sabine in Cambridge & Boston, Mass.

We both made the trip across the Atlantic to experience Scratch where it is created… in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Lifelong Kindergarten Group, led by Mitchel Resnick, at the MIT Media Lab has been creating and developing Scratch since 2003. We got to meet lots of them at the conference, as well as many of the 600 other educators. There were workshops and keynotes, an exhibition and lots of great opportunities to talk to others using Scratch. Most were educators (lots of primary school teachers, a good few secondary school teachers, more librarians than I would have expected). The Scratch Team were very much there as well, always available for a chat and very engaging and open to all.

I brought home so many great ideas that I can just scratch (oops) the surface here. The conference will definitely influence the cccSkerries coding classes for the next 2 years, until Scratch 2020! Still, here are a few thoughts. (more…)

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Focus on Back to School Routines

Formulas and Tables can't compete with SnapchatIt’s back to school time, and for most parents, that means re-establishing routines. Around bed times, around getting homework done, around outside play, around proper nutrition, around limiting screen time… It can seem overwhelming. So many things to consider!

One thing I’ve found is that having clear rules helps – as long as they are simple, and as long as there are not too many of them! As a digital educator, there are two aspects I’d focus on: Screen time, and what to encourage the child to “do online.” (more…)

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Read more about the article Scratch Conference 2017 in Bordeaux
Can you spot me?

Scratch Conference 2017 in Bordeaux

Millions around the world use Scratch as their first coding experience. To learn from the best Scratch educators, to get some new inspirations, and to share my own experiences with this fantastic coding platform, I went to the international Scratch 2017 conference in Bordeaux, aka Scratch2017Bdx, this July, and I was not disappointed! Here are just some of my take-aways… many of them will make their way into my classes with cccSkerries (in real life, here in Skerries, Co. Dublin, Ireland) and (online) with thecccCo.

10 things I brought back from Scratch2017Bdx…

  1. Use Scratch more for story telling – imaginary stories or stories based on real life (for instance, tales from a family’s history, or projects based on what is happening in the world – check out the Syrian Refugees stories created by students in a Chicago high school).
  2. Get a taste of Augmented Reality – easy with Scratch! We’ll use the camera and pick-colour / when touching colour function to make a ping pong game that uses real (drawn) paddles, as shown by Scratcher Xefi during one of the many fantastic workshops. (This is one for the intermediate camp, I think!)
  3. Do even more with the Scratch graphics editor! … a fantastic tutorial I’ll use (again in the intermediate camp / groups) was created by a 17-year-old girl from South Africa, known on Scratch as Bubble103, who was at the conference.
  4. Have a closer look at Scratch 3.0 in its current pre-pre-alpha version…
    The next version of Scratch will run on tablets and smartphones, so more places to show off our work, yay!
  5. …. and do the Scratch 3.0 team a favour by running several Scratch 2.0 projects in the current Scratch 3.0 version to check if they’re working
  6. Keep an eye out for projects by Scratchers I met during the conference, and add more of their projects to my Scratch Studio (a collection of Scratch projects) “#Scratch2017Bdx”.
  7. Try Inkspace for creating graphics that are too complex for the Scratch graphics editors, and then import them into Scratch projects. (Thank you, Mathieu, for the tip!)
  8. Try out some of the many other things, such as Cloqq, where children can try out a number of creative technologies including Scratch; micro:bit for connecting Scratch to the real world via the (somewhat experimental) ScratchX site *but oh no, what do I see, it’s for Mac only at the moment! Can’t wait for it to be extended to Windows computers, too*
  9. Spread my love for vector graphics wherever I can, in my groups, online in the community, and through my projects with thecccco and cccSkerries!
    Why vector graphics? Scratchers enjoy creating their own graphics (and it’s easier than you might think). Animations are way easier with Vector Graphics than with Bitmap. It’s a good introduction to computer graphics in general. And Scratchers can do fantastic things with their own graphics, such as explain things visually, tell a story with or without lip synching, create a music video, create a logo for their account…. Creativity rules! 😀
  10. And then there is Sonic Pi, a live coding music synth. Watch it in action at the conference party here – Sam Aaron live-coding music at the conference after-party!

(more…)

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Duo your lingo up with Duolingo!

This is a longer version of the article submitted to SkeriesNews for their 21 April 2017 edition.

duolingo-10So you’re thinking about that summer holiday, as you would, this time of year. South of France maybe. Or Italy. Spain beckons. Or that city tour to Germany you’ve been promising yourself? Finally make it to Russia, see the Kremlin for yourself? You could probably get by with English there, but wouldn’t it be more fun to be able to understand and speak the lingo a bit?

Indeed it would, and there is an easy (and free!) way to prepare yourself for the linguistic challenge – in just 5 minutes a day!  (more…)

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Dublin Tech Summit 2017

A Skerries Perspective

This article was published in the 24 February 2017 edition of Skerries News.

dublin-tech-summit-03

What will all the developments in technology mean for our daily lives, here in this seaside town in North County Dublin? What is in store, technologically, for the next generation – what will life be like for our son, who is now 16, when he is our age? Indeed what will life be like for us all in one, two decades? That’s what I found myself wondering after attending the two-day 1st Dublin Tech Summit in Dublin on February 15 and 16.

(more…)

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Let’s Go Digital: Getting Your Daily Paper on Your Screen

So what’s that now, paperless newspapers?

Indeed. Subscribe to any of the Irish daily newspapers online, and you can read it without ever having to fold a paper again. Good for the environment, good for your purse.

How so?

For the environment? Have you ever looked at the pile of old newspapers building up in the corner?

No, I get that. For my purse!

It’s a lot cheaper. €4 per week for the Irish Times ePaper; €14.99 per month for the Herald, €19.99 for the Irish Independent. And they all offer the first month for just one Euro.

Yeah no. I tried it before and it just didn’t do it for me.

Same here. However, I’ve resubscribed to the Irish Times online, and it’s so much better now! (more…)

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Instagram and Skerries

instagram-and-skerries-in-skerries-news-nov-2016Q: So what is this now, Instagram???? Can’t people just share their pictures on Facebook?

A: Well, you go to Instagram to see good, interesting, fascinating, beautiful, handsome, intriguing, happiness-inducing images – mainly shot with a smart phone, and practically always square. You share them – normally not with anybody in particular, but with anybody who is looking. Whereas on Facebook you share pictures with family and friends mainly.
Or, as Instagram puts it: “Instagram is a fun and quirky way to share your life with friends through a series of pictures. Snap a photo with your mobile phone, then choose a filter to transform the image into a memory to keep around forever.”

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