Introduction:
In this age now, a big skill to have for children is something that they are going to take into the next century, coding. Coding is something that does for one, logical thinking, critical thinking and problem-solving. Two, it is very creative. Once you get good enough at coding it’s all about coming up with the best way to do something. You also get hooked to coding after a while. You always are wondering if there is something you could do better to improve what you just did. Out of all the ways to teach children how to code such as Hour of Code, Scratch สแครช is the most popularly known and used amongst educators. I would like to talk about and explain the benefits of exploration and expression when Scratch is taught to kids. Scratch gives children the ability to create, invent, solve problems, know why it works, make models and think creatively.
Fostering Creativity and Imagination
Scratch สแครช is most well known for its creativity and imagination capabilities. It has a kid friendly interface where children can design their own game, interactive story, or an animation just by simply clicking and dragging coding blocks with the Lego-like coding blocks. This form of coding is hands-on and allows children to physically enable their ideas which promotes that feeling of what they want to do. As they go through the creative process of creating and re-making, they will also start to develop a sense of how things work and the endless possibilities of coding with Scratch.
Building Problem-Solving Skills
Coding with Scratch involves breaking down a big complex problem and can code it in small blocks which is what problem solving is all about. When kids create and program a project in Scratch they have to figure out what the problem is and find patterns to help them develop a logical solution to a problem. Problem solving this way does not just enhance their coding skills but it also builds on their academic thinking skills, critical thinking and analyzing issues but most importantly when kids code they have to learn how to deal with insurmountable problems which will build resilience and make them more persistent whenever challenges arise of coding.
Encouraging Collaboration and Sharing
Great thing that sets Scratch different is it includes this online community where kids can share their own projects, collaborate with others and also get feedback from the community. Kids, being kids, would definitely like to socialize so, this social aspect lets these children interact with one another, share their ideas and also learn from each other as to how each person does things in their projects. Kids also get to see, know and learn of how others have done their coding on Scratch – these projects, they get to remix and then are added up to their creation. Sharing projects with the Scratch community is also very satisfying as it encourages the child as they are able to get opinions from people they do not know yet they can relate with the ideas a child has in mind.
Empowering Self-Expression and Confidence
As children build their very own creations it allows these children to be able to be themselves and express all the ideas in their mind and being able to tell other people of how these children see things differently in digital format. Being able to physically manifest ideas through projects would help these children become more confident on their ideas and on what they want to bring about in their project. And as they get good feedback and recognition from people in the community, it gives them a sense that whatever they have made is a good idea and gives validation to produce more to what they are currently in.
Conclusion:
Scratch has a lot of benefits that go beyond teaching kids how to code, it is sneakily teaching kids how to communicate with their other students, solving problems in projects and allowing children to input whatever they want and have self-expression. It’s the same as knowing how to type after second or third grade since it is considered as digital literacy.
