This project was so much fun to work on, hugely because it was very nostalgic it was to be using a program I was very familiar with and enjoyed using in middle school. However, the last day of the project, the night before it was due became one of the most stressful times of my semester. For some reason, my project stopped working and no matter how I reprogrammed or reorganized the program I was unable to get the final part of the code to work correctly. In the end, I resigned myself to completely reworking the project and making a whole new one from scratch. While I am happy with the final result to a certain extent there is more that I had planned out and fleshed out in my original Scratch program that I wish could have been seen through to fruition and I believe that if I had another day I would have been able to figure it out but as it was I created a new program in order to showcase a complete game that I do enjoy the outcome of for the class to play.
The final game can be played here: Scratch Final Version
The original Scratch game can be played here: Scratch Version 1
The Scratch trial/prototype can be played here: Scratch Prototype
The Scratch preliminary experiment can be viewed here: Experimentation Day 1
Despite the struggles I faced, in the end, I immensely enjoyed working on this project especially in a class where I was able to get the most out of the Design Thinking Process. As each class involved a period of sharing our work and progress I was able to rethink my project at each turn, come up with new questions about what I was trying to achieve (Ask) and re-edit and design pieces of my project to refine it. At the end that helped me when I had to redo my project as I was able to use many aspects from the original project in the final version.
Working on this project I was able to relearn and refine many skills and tools that I had in the back of my mind from middle school. I had never used Scratch as an online program before and had used it to program lego robots in an app so making a game also provided a new way to experience an old program that I was familiar with. I have always enjoyed working with Scratch and I can see this being a tool that can be used in a lesson plan for students of all ages due to the flexibility of the program. I would teach the class similar to how it was carried out in class and have students pick stories or characters they are passionate about and write an interactive story that showcases their ability to combine storytelling, characters, and game mechanics. For younger students from grades K-2, I would most likely have them use the pre-created sprites and backgrounds and as the students got older I would have them design and draw, by hand or on the computer, their backgrounds, and sprites.
This activity highlighted for me the ability of art projects and assignments to be connected to other classes and skills that are crucial for student development. Students need to be able to understand where everything fits in a landscape both 3-dimensional and 2-dimensional and mapping out their project in Scratch would do just that. Additionally, it is important in education to strengthen art not only as its own subject but as a subject that can re-enforce lessons from other subjects. Scratch projects that showcase animals in their habitats, the solar system, a game about a country in the world and much more can all be tied back to other classes that students are taking which will enforce their understanding not only of the program but what they are learning interdisciplinarily.
