Twolittleboys Posted December 20, 2014 Share Posted December 20, 2014 I am thinking of signing up one or both of my sons (12 and 10) for a (free) online class about Scratch. Older ds has been fiddling around with it for a while, younger not so much. I did see some offerings on edx/coursera so I was wondering whether anyone has any experience with these and could give me an idea which one would be best. I would also be open to a completely different class but don't want to spend money on it as both kids are in public school and I want them to be able to drop the class if it gets to be too much (the class is really just for fun). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merylvdm Posted December 20, 2014 Share Posted December 20, 2014 Can you give a link to the Coursera one ? I found the edX one and enrolled to see what it is like. The biggest problem with free classes is that it is easy to drop them when you get a bit busy - I know that is the very reason one signs up for them but after 3 years of both teaching free and paid classes - and taking them (and my kids taking them) - I have realized you need to be very motivated to finish free courses. I have finished 4 Coursera Courses now, and my one son did an Artificial Intelligence one and finished it, but my daughter has yet to complete one. As soon as she gets busy she stops and then doesn't come back. I suggest you either enroll with them or try to set aside a regular time each day and encourage them to work on it - maybe directly before or after supper. My daughter is also in public school now so I know exactly what you mean about being concerned the work load will be too much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twolittleboys Posted December 20, 2014 Author Share Posted December 20, 2014 Can you give a link to the Coursera one ? I found the edX one and enrolled to see what it is like. The biggest problem with free classes is that it is easy to drop them when you get a bit busy - I know that is the very reason one signs up for them but after 3 years of both teaching free and paid classes - and taking them (and my kids taking them) - I have realized you need to be very motivated to finish free courses. I have finished 4 Coursera Courses now, and my one son did an Artificial Intelligence one and finished it, but my daughter has yet to complete one. As soon as she gets busy she stops and then doesn't come back. I suggest you either enroll with them or try to set aside a regular time each day and encourage them to work on it - maybe directly before or after supper. My daughter is also in public school now so I know exactly what you mean about being concerned the work load will be too much. Thanks for your input. Of course you are right - if a class is paid for it makes it much more likely that it will actually get done (at least that is true for me). If we were homeschooling and I needed the kids to earn credits etc. it would be quite different. But as it is I know I would have a hard time letting a paid for class just go and the kids really are quite busy. A paid for class might be too stressful for all of us (and I'd rather not spend the money right now anyway). Unfortunately, I can't get the link to work - the Coursera class I was thinking of is called Code yourself and is a lot shorter than the edx class (so maybe would be easier to finish?). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iskra Posted December 20, 2014 Share Posted December 20, 2014 I am of the opinion that the purpose of Scratch is to "dip their toes in the water". Taking a class on it would take the fun out of it. It is so intuitively designed so that kids can discover things on their own. If you want them to love it, I would let them keep fiddling with it. When my kids take a class it would be on a more serious language (python perhaps), but that's best done after they are already conviced they love coding and Scratch is great for instilling that love:) I mean if they are asking for a class I would go for it, but otherwise I would just let them enjoy what they are doing on their own. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twolittleboys Posted December 20, 2014 Author Share Posted December 20, 2014 I am of the opinion that the purpose of Scratch is to "dip their toes in the water". Taking a class on it would take the fun out of it. It is so intuitively designed so that kids can discover things on their own. If you want them to love it, I would let them keep fiddling with it. When my kids take a class it would be on a more serious language (python perhaps), but that's best done after they are already conviced they love coding and Scratch is great for instilling that love:) I mean if they are asking for a class I would go for it, but otherwise I would just let them enjoy what they are doing on their own. Hm, that does make sense. I guess my problem is that I feel older ds tends to be a bit too ambitious in his projects and then gets frustrated when they don't work as planned. Also, I don't know that much about it myself so while I can figure it out if I take the time it isn't something I can just look at and point out the problem. I am hoping that a class will give a certain amount of knowledge/skill and then pose problems that can be done with what has been learned so it would be less frustrating... I don't want to take the fun out of it but if it is free I think it would be okay for the kids to just drop it if they don't enjoy it. So either they like it and will benefit from it or not (in which case we'll just forget about it). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merylvdm Posted December 20, 2014 Share Posted December 20, 2014 I teach Scratch classes, but my own kids taught themselves to program, so I can see both sides of this. I think it depends a lot on the child. My kids like to learn by googling to figure out what to do when they get stuck. And they can come up with projects that challenge themselves. It took me a long time to decide to teach Scratch (and other programming languages) as I assumed everyone would just learn like my kids did and I didn't see the need for a class. But having taught for a a few years now I realize some students do better when they have a teacher to stretch them - many of my students would probably never try to create the games they do in the final weeks of my class but my class is designed to take them slowly to the point they can create them. I would expect this to be true of most online programming classes (I took one through Coursera and they did the same thing). The other things a class can teach is better coding practices. And in a class students can get help when they are stuck (even in free classes there are forums where you can get help from fellow students). A graded class also gives a student feedback - and that is something that often motivates students. I know it doesn't matter to all of them but my own kids definitely do better is someone else is taking a look at what they are doing. Pretty much anything can be self taught - and that is what our family does most of the time. Not just programming but anything using a computer - and also a host of other things. One of mine taught himself another language, even! It really depends on the student as to whether a course in Scratch would be beneficial or detract from the learning experience. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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