Saturday, September 20, 2008

Scratch that problem-solving itch!

Now that we have finished the problem-solving activity using Scratch, I would like some of your opinions on the process. What did you first think when you were given the assignment? How difficult was the program to use? Did it help or hinder you to go through the website first to see what types of programs could exist? Did Ms. Ites' examples (and failures :) ) help you in your own programming?

Please give specific examples and use your first name, last initial. If you have forgotten the access for responses, it is ites.teach@gmail.com with the username teachla68.

Please have all responses in no later than before school Friday, September 26. We will be discussing these responses in class that day.

38 comments:

ms. ites said...

I thought it would be an awesome project. I also thought that the program was going to be pretty easy to use because I worked with it in other classes. It helped a little bit to see what other people had done to get ideas. It also helped to go see if anyone less had similar problems. Yes, because you gave good examples that made it easy to see all the functions of scratch.
Katie T

ms. ites said...

I thought it was very fun :) I liked to mess around with scratch for the weekend and I really think that its cool that everyone is in the same room because that way we can all help each other with our problems, I had some questions about fixing mym gravity jumping thing, that I might use on a mario game later on, I really want to end up making a mario game. Having an account is awesome, and I can't wait untill I can upload from the school because I have lots of idea and I have to stuff them all up in my flash drive lol :) Over all, this is my favorite class :)
-Jeff M

ms. ites said...

I thot that at first dat it got a lot easier and the program really made me use my problem solving skills. It definitley helped me when i saw the website because i saw the difference in the program. i was really proud of my first assignment and it made me feel goood that i could actually do something like that on the computer.

ms. ites said...

Ben B

ms. ites said...

when i first saw scratch i thought that it would be really easy. but my thoughts on scratch changed fast.it was just either i didnt pay attention or i had no clue what i was doing.i had brody help me i think that if i would have been exposed to this stuff in another class i would have got it a little bit better.but yes mrs. ites examples that may have worked did really help.jon c.

ms. ites said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ms. ites said...

i thought it would be kind of hard and kind of easy. the program was really easy to use. i didn't get how to use it at first then it got easier. it helped i liked playing sliders. yes it did help.
-reneef

ms. ites said...

AbbyA
I thought it looked very confusing. But is also looked fun.I helped looking at the directions on Emelia's thing. Yes, because I got an idea of how to work out my problems.

Scratch Rocks!

ms. ites said...

At first, I thought the whole idea of creating video games would be completely impossible. In the beginning, I couldn't really understand what the difference was between the green buttons and purple buttons. It helped a lot by looking at other people's projects so that I could start getting ideas about what I wanted to do for my project. Ms. Ites' examples helped me out a lot because I would totally stuck and she would explain how to get over it and make something even cooler.
Emelia

ms. ites said...

I thought it sounded like a lot of fun but I had also never had used scratch before. It was kind of hard but it got easier as time went by. Yes it gave me a better understanding about what we were doing and about what we could do with the program. Yes it gave me an understanding of how to use the program when I just started. I liked learning how to make the figure jump or how to form a spuare.
Patrick T

ms. ites said...

i thought that this is asowm and i thout that it was fun.
it was cool to see other projects.

ms. ites said...

that is mine up top sean

ms. ites said...

I thought that the scratch program was very fun. I kind of had a idea of what I was doing going into the project. BUt, I still had asome problems. Over all I thought the program was very fun. To fun for school actually.\

Anthony D

ms. ites said...

i thought that the scratch program was really fun and interesting to use. i thought the website did help with some examples because with it i could relize what i could do with it and that i wouldnt be limitied to certain things. at first the porgram was a little difficult because i want in the exploratory so i had a few difficulties at first. so as time went it got a little easier for to use.

Harrison F.

ms. ites said...

that it looked fun and cool but it also looked difficult. it was very difficult. it almost made me feel dumb haha. when i was doing my project i would get one part but then i put another part with it and it wouldn't work and i would have to start over. another confusing thing that happened to me is that i wanted to duplicate it, so i did. it worked on one of my sprints worked but the other one wouldn't even though it had the same script. it hurt because it made me even more confused and made me feel even more stupid. yes mrs. ites's examples did help because i learned by watching her correct her failures and listened to the questions she asked herself so she could correct her faults.
Katie C

ms. ites said...

What did you first think when you were given the assignment?
I didn't even know what scratch was, so I thought it wasgoing to be pretty fun. And it was when I actually found out what it was.

How difficult was the program to use?
At first it was kinda confusing, because i didn't know what the heck i was doing but after awhile I got the hang of it and it was easy.

Did it help or hinder you to go through the website first to see what types of programs could exist?
I think it helped to know what I was working with first, rather then just figuring it out as i go.

Did Ms. Ites' examples (and failures :) ) help you in your own programming?

Yes, it really did! I am glad that she showed us all the work and how to do most of it. Then I kinda got what to do and what not to do.
it was very helpful[:

-Katie H.

ms. ites said...

I thought it was going to be a piece of cake. it was not that diffucult until you saw what you did and you didn't like it. No it did not help me to go to the website, because there were games that didn't make sense at all and i was totally confused. YEs, it did help me because when i would make a mistake, it looked really cool. When I was trying to make a full circle, I pressed something different, and it turned into a clover, and a spiral, it looked reaally cool. I think using this site helped me to learn how to make games, have fun, and do really cool stuff. I really liked using it a lot and i will definitley use it in the future.

ms. ites said...

micah purcell

Colleen Ites said...

I really liked it, it was hard to use sometimes though but it was good problem solving. It was fun.

Joe A

ms. ites said...

This would be easy because i was in the exploratory every year. the program was very easy to use. It didnt really help but it as fun to play the games.

Matt E

Colleen Ites said...

i thought it would be fun to make a game i didn't realizeght it might be easier. it was a difficult thing to use, there were so many different numbers and variables. it helped to see examples of games and examples of how to do things. i did have some problems making my character jump at first it wouldn't move then it wouldn't go back down then it could stick to walls and walk in midair, maybe i should have made a spider man game...
mary d

ms. ites said...

When we were first given the assignment, I thought, wow! I thought it was going to be hard and complicated. At first I did think it was hard, but then once I started using it, it got easier. I thought it helped. It think so because, I can find out what is possible with this program. I think Mrs. Ites examples really helped. This way she knows how to help us- because she's doing it to.

Mikayla M.

ms. ites said...

When i first got the assignment i thought that it would be easy to use and create things on it. I thought that scratch was very hard to use. every time I would try something it would never work. like when I tried to make my sprite jump. Ufing the website made it harder to do because they would show you things you could do but I could never figure it out. The things you showed us didn't really help because I never was able to figure out how to do them.
Madeline.D.

ms. ites said...

Luke B's Comments:
First off, I agree completely with Anthony's statement about being too fun for school.
Before I answer Mrs. Ites's questions, I think you need to understand where I'm coming from. When I get on the computer, I find computer games boring. I usually just get on to browse iTunes or fill my Amazon.com shopping cart with CD's. Yeah. I pretty much revolve my free time around music...
That being said, at first I thought Scratch was going to be extremely boring. When I found out that that's what the exploratory was doing, I thought about it for two seconds and decided on Mock Trial. (Of course, I would've done Mock Trial anyway...)
Then I found out that we HAD to do Scratch for Language Arts, and I silently groaned. But then I tried it, and I did hate it at first. It wasn't boring like I thought it was going to be, just frustrating! I didn't understand how to use any of it; all I got was how to make the sprite move ten steps...
I liked it more and more as I understood it more and more. I got help; my biggest helps were Brody, Emelia, and Mrs. Ites. Just like almost everyone else, I started to find it more and more addicting. Now, I think its easy, except for making games. I can't figure out how to make it interactive! (I.e., Mary Jess's, Andrew Eaton's.)
I think the website was the worst tool possible (for someone new to Scratch.) all it did was show you what others had done, but it didn't explain what they had done to get there. It would help if it showed the sprites' codes. All it was good for with me was giving me a headache. (Maybe that's why I'm sick...)
I said earlier that Mrs. Ites was one of my biggest helps. So yes, her examples (and failures) did help, because unlike the website, Mrs. Ites EXPLAINED herself!
In closing, I LOVE SCRATCH! I'm planning on installing it on our home computer sometime today and teaching my family about it, too. Hopefully now I'll have something to do other than daydream about music. (Yes, I know how it feels, Katie V.=))

ms. ites said...

Sorry about the length!
-Luke B.

ms. ites said...

P.S. I'm not doing this at 7:49 in the morning. The clock is two hours off...
It's 9:49.

ms. ites said...

At first I thought that Scratch was really confusing and didn't make sense, but once I played around with it I understood more. I think that we should have seen examples first, but not played around on the website. We should have used the website second. Mrs.Ites's examples helped to see how the program worked. I liked learning about the pen.
Mary Jess H.

ms. ites said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ms. ites said...

I really liked the scratch program. When I first saw it, and saw Mrs. Ites' example of a fortune cookie spinning in a circle, I thought "Wonderful, how much better can this program get? Nothing more exciting than fortune cookies spinning in circles." Then I started using it. It was confusing at first. I didn't know how to use the controls. I ended up cancelling all my commands out with other commands.
I found out it was really fun though, seeing all the different things (sorry Mrs. wilson)you could do. It helped to see the different things you could do with the program, but I wish it would've explained how to do some of the things, like what archknight did. I still can't figure out how to make my gobo jump without glitching it up. Ms. Ites' example really helped. She helped me figure out hoe to make my sprite turn around without flipping upside down.
Overall, it was really awesome.
Sarah D.

ms. ites said...

o.m.g scrath is soooo much fun! i felt so dumb at first, because i had no idea what the heck i was doing. i was just putting some of those piece things together and i was experamenting ( i 4got how to spell that lol) with them to see what they would do when i put them together. it helped to see example so i wasnt totally confused. it also helped a lot to be in the exploratory because if i wasnt i dont think i wouldve ever figured out how to do any of that. that isnt my strogest area of how those types of things work, but i was glad i was in the exploratory to learn that ahead of time.
i love exploring the scratch website it was so much fun, but it shows how much work this really is. there was this one game that i liked a lot it was called sliders and there were soooo many levels, i bet there were millions of scripts (maybe not that many)!
i had tons of fun i hope we will be able to do scratch throughout the year! :):)


KELCIE H!! :P

Unknown said...

I thought it would be lots of fun because i always liked to do those types of things. It was only hard at first because i didnt know all the different things that there were to use. I also didnt know how to make my the sprites do certain things. Yes because it gave me ideas on what i could do. When you would fail it did help me because i found out ways that would help me fix my problems.

ms. ites said...

this was a cool project! i liked it when we first learned how to use it! at first i had no clue what things to use because i didnt know how to use most of it. i liked other peoples ideas too! yes because you had really good ideas and it helped alot
-katie v :-)

ms. ites said...

I thought Scratch was going to be a lot of math and that it would be boring. It was really fun and challenging. I really enjoyed the problem solving part of it. It was hard at first but I got the hang of it. I liked to figure it out by myself otherwise it confused me. I liked going to the website to see everything that I could make
~Katie K.

ms. ites said...

teachla681)When i first got the assignment i was so confused on what we had to do but thought that scratch was fun.
2)it was difficult at first cause i didnt really understand how to use it but a few days later i picked up on some tips and got better at using scratch.
3)i didnt really care about the website cause i really just wanted to play on scratch.
4)it did cause it showed me how to problem solve in a way.
Leigha P.

ms. ites said...

i had some difficulties. like i could not get onr=e costome to come up. also i had some trouble with getting the right costumes to come up. other wise it was al smooth sailin

Andrew H.

ms. ites said...

i like it a lot. it was a little hard at first but once you got the hang of it it was pretty easy to work with.


Brody M

ms. ites said...

haha this comment is for luke! i agree and yes we know u luuuvvv music! i do to lol haha ya but i know what u mean about having nothing to do and now being able to do scratch at home too is so much fun!

ms. ites said...

-katie v :-)