[RE]LEARN 2020 - The Learning Innovation Festival

Led by and co-presented with colleague Bea Leiderman, this first workshop uses MIT’s powerful but highly accessible Scratch coding language to illustrate and give participants an experience of the File/Tinker/Play/Share (FTPS) framework.

Beginning with a simple geometric drawing project (‘Follow’) that introduces participants to Scratch’s block-based coding structure (assembled like LEGO bricks and designed for even young children to master quickly), participants are next offered opportunities to experiment with, modify, and adapt the code from this project (‘Tinker’) in order to introduce new features. In doing so, they solidify and expand their understanding of Scratch and gain new confidence. Once they’ve completed and shared their results, participants have the opportunity to develop a new project of their own (‘Play’) using what they’ve discovered during their explorations and during their interactions with others. Finally, participants will present their projects (‘Share’), comparing their results with the results of their colleagues.

The goal of this 90-minute workshop is to give participants a genuine experience of the FTPS framework so they can see how its various stages fit together. This experience will also provide them with important insights and understanding so they can construct their own FTPS projects for their classes and institutions. By demonstrating how the presenters guide and intervene in the projects, the workshop also prepares participants to guide their own FTPS projects successfully.