Join this hands-on session to find out how you can engage youth in creating their own interactive projects based on their hobbies and interests. Try a new way to get started with coding using a Scratch “microworld” - a small set of coding blocks you can snap together online to program your own interactive projects. Choose from a variety of interest areas, including dance, fashion, comedy, music, and sports. After exploring Scratch microworlds, share your experience and brainstorm ways you could adapt these activities to connect with the interests of young people you work with. We will share what we’ve learned introducing Scratch to young people within libraries and other environments. Bring a laptop to dig into Scratch during the session.
The Coding for All team (Scratch Team at the MIT Media Lab, DML Research Hub at University of California Irvine; and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University) are exploring and creating more interest-based pathways into computational fluency, both on- and offline, particularly for youth from underrepresented groups in computing. Because informal learning spaces, like libraries, are powerful spaces for providing access and a supportive social context to cultivate the connected learning of youth, informal educators are ideal facilitators for workshops on Scratch and other digital media projects. Computational fluency is widely recognized as a key digital literacy, and Scratch can enable youth to create, design, and express themselves in new and empowering ways and can expand future career and life opportunities. And by tapping into the expertise of teens who may already be experienced with Scratch, informal learning spaces can empower youth to take on greater roles in their library communities.
