6 to 8 Yrs – Creative Computing Module 1

Prerequisites

None

Learning Outcomes

This foundation course uses a block based language developed by MIT to create animations, interactive stories, art and music. Through this course young minds easily appreciate that Computer programs tell the computer precisely what to do in a step-by-step manner through clear and careful thinking. The module is ideal for beginners with no prior experience on a computer as well as learners who are comfortable maneuvering on a computer. A project based approach is used to engage students and create an interest in technology as a creative tool.

The focus areas are:

• Learn how to log in, use the tool bar and move around the Scratch application
• Basic Components in a Scratch Project
  • Sprites: objects or characters
  • Costume: the look and feel for a sprite
  • Scripts: behaviors for a sprite
  • Stage: background where stories, games, or animations play out
• Using costumes, Getting the current sprite information such as then name, X-Y position, direction and the rotation style
• Creating beautiful projects with the paint editor
• Understand how to operate string and number data types
• Use operators perform calculations and comparisons
• Appreciate what variables are in programming, create and name a new variable, set variables to specified values, change variables by specified amounts,  show and hide the variable monitor on the stage
• Create and name a new list, show the items in a list, delete items in a list, add items to the end of the list, delete items, insert or delete an item at the specified position in the list and report true if the list contains a specified item

Students learn fundamental object oriented programming concepts as they execute their projects that forms a firm foundation to other programming languages:

• Sequence: the importance of the order of precise steps
• Iteration through the forever and repeat loops
• Conditional statements through if and if-else statements
• Event handling when a key is pressed and when a sprite is clicked
• Threads for parallel execution when launching two stacks at the same time
• Coordination and synchronization by broadcast and wait to coordinate actions of multiple sprites
• Use Keyboard input to ask and wait for prompts for input
• Use Boolean logic operators (and, or, not)
• Designing a beautiful user interface that others enjoy to play your games