SELF ACCESS PARK

How to make a ping pong game using Scratch

Integrating Scratch coding tasks in a science and engineering university ESL classroom

Suwako Uehara (The University of Electro-Communications)

JALTCALL 2015 Workshop Room LL Library Saturday, 6th June 2015 09:30–11:00

In May 2007, The MIT Media Lab released an online computer programming language, Scratch, where users can create interactive media projects such as animation, stories, games and more. Students at a Japanese science and engineering university are provided the task to code using Scratch in an ESL class. The students are free to create any project over a couple of weeks. The learners then demonstrate and present their relative creations in English in the classroom. The presenter of this workshop will provide guidelines on how to get started, highlight student projects, show a video of the student presentation and provide timelines for integrating Scratch coding in English language classroom. Then, the attendees of this presentation can take part in a practical demonstration to code using the unique Scratch graphical user interface. Functions demonstrated will include making your sprite move hide, change colour, changing background, adding sound and more.

 

Download instructions to make your first ping pong game using Scratch, here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nurturing creativity and presentation skills for science and engineering major EFL classes using ICT

Suwako Uehara (The University of Electro-Communications)

STEM 2015 Presentation Saturday, 16th May 2015

 

Creativity is a basic act on education that not only the Japanese Ministry of Education (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology-Japan, 2006) but also educators worldwide recognize (Robinson, 2013; UNESCO, 2006/2007, 2010/11). There are also various book publications, the aim of which is to bridge the gap between policy makers call for increased focus on creativity in the curriculum versus the lack of educational practice and knowledge of the educator (Treffinger, Schoonover, & Selby, 2012) and there is a need for the learning experience to be one that is relevant, challenging and innovative (Sefton- Green, Thomson, Jones, & Bresler, 2011). Robinson (2013) described that current education systems leave some learners disengaged, and allowing for more individuality and creativity in the classroom may motivate the learners. Creativity can be incorporated the standard curriculum, studies have shown positive outcomes such as increased grades and more motivation in the subject taught (Costa & Marques, 2014).

While the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology-Japan (2000) outlines the importance to incorporate elements of critical thinking and communication in the ESL classroom, motivating science and engineering students in an ESL classroom is often one of the greatest challenges instructors face. ICT use in the classroom is greatly encouraged for the 21st century education in Japan (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology-Japan, 2010) and therefore, instructors incorporating ICT in the classroom should ideally develop teaching methods, which do not prevent the development of speaking fluency in the classroom.

In this study, 31 science and engineering majors at a national science-based university in Japan enrolled in a semester-long ESL English seminar class. One of the learning goals of the class was to develop speaking fluency in academic speaking focusing on presentations by participants using one or many of the following free online applications. The applications used were Wix (www.wix.com) a free drag and drop graphical user interface web page builder; Scratch (https://scratch.mit.edu/) a coding application used to create created by MIT in order to educate young learners the concept of coding language (Resnick, 2012); and Google forms which is a survey tool that allows the user to create surveys online (White, n.d.). Participants completed a survey related to the use of the various ICT mentioned above, and they demonstrated creativity by producing original output using the various ICT tools. Evaluation results of student presentations were measured following evaluation criteria developed by the researcher showed improvement in the participants’ presentation skills as the weeks progressed. Additionally, the participants demonstrated critical thinking and problem solving skills as shown in Bowen (2011).

The implications of the study shows that the use of various online applications can nurture creativity, and by scaffolding the learning goals, speaking fluency through presentations could be improved.