Embedding Scratch in the Classroom

There are many barriers to overcome before Scratch can be embedded into everyday classroom use but the technical infrastructure of a computer and an interactive whiteboard is already present in many classrooms in the UK.

One major issue is that many teachers want to adopt an incremental approach to help them change their attitudes and teaching practice. Scratch allows these teachers to teach the standard the ICT curriculum whilst offering an opportunity to empower children with high levels of digital literacy and creative control of the computer through computer programming. One requirement is that teachers are given the time and the training to become familiar with the Scratch environment and the resources and lesson plans to be able to run ICT lessons and computer clubs successfully.

The creative curriculum being introduced in the UK is giving teachers more scope to cross-reference different parts of the curriculum and create cross-subject activities. Scratch is a great mechanism for bringing different activities together and presenting topic knowledge as a set of applications created by the class. The best of these applications can also be used by the teacher as teaching aids for the next generation of students.