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This week we encourage you to take time to tinker with something:
Here are some questions to guide your reflections:
What were you tinkering with? Did you try anything new or different?
What did you notice? What might you want to try next?
I love to play Minecraft with my children every weekend. We are working for years in five worlds, each one with a different concept.
For example:
Love this idea. In addition to the obvious bonding and support for your kids, I like how you are helping them learn in their own ways about how the same worlds can be viewed/experienced in many different ways, depending on the perspective or “creativity” setting you bring to that world.
I have tried using play dough to work on the sequel of a story challenge. As I started modeling it, I could notice my mind would make attempts of creating new scenarios about what could come next regarding the story.
It was quite challenging, because I can barely remember the last time I used this kind of material. Maybe next time, I won’t use a sheet of paper as a support. I might try some cardboard.
Any thoughts on what you see?
Well, that’s not me. I asked my sophomores if they could come up with a painting robot using only the material I had provided them with. They had never been challenged like that before, at least, not at school.
For right now I’m tinkering some mobile application using Android Studio.
There’s so much things to learn in creating some till now.
But this is the process for me to learn and experience in Android Studio, so I keep doing the best and try all the feature that can be used until my application completely finished.
We are busy redesigning some courses so they follow a blended delivery. Of course there are many guidelines on how to do such blended design, SAMR, ADIE, you name it. All take a very planned approach. Rightfully so as course design is important. However, in one of the session we asked participants to “play around” with content and online versus in person sessions. They were first going to make a poster with two columns, but I felt that wasn’t conducive to the tinkering part. So we handed out sticky notes and a poster which just had a horizontal line (representing the time, and dividing online on top and in person at the bottom). This was where tinkering started to take place. By the mere fact that the sticky notes were mobile and easy replaceable, more options were considered and a process of iteration started. “If we move this here, then this doesn’t make sense anymore, then we should revise this…”
It is maybe not the typical “material” tinkering that most people will share evidence of, but I am convinced that this was mental tinkering as part of module design. For the participants it was a very innovative approach as they more often are in linear processes that have a start and an end point. This took them out of their comfort zone (at the start they kept asking if they were correct ), but created new opportunities. The picture illustrates the next step in the process. Unfortunately I do not have pictures illustrating the tinkering phase.
Still on project scratch
I and my brother try to have high score with timer in this game, to start this activity i make this game and play with my brother
Maybe, a bit unexpected, but… What do I see? 
a lake, the sun, and a frog hidden on the shore… a summer) 
I love your idea to use play dough 
It’s great that you are playing together!
I and my children also like the game)
Moreover, our cat likes similar game, too 
What were you tinkering with? Did you try anything new or different?
I recently acquired a Lego BricQ Motion Essentials kit. I was quite intimidated by it and had been working through the enclosed booklet so thought this would be great for my tinkering activity. I decided to tie it to the Scratch Animate a Name project so I worked towards animating letters drawn on paper with the Motion Legos.
What did you notice?
It was helpful to have a purpose for building. I honestly felt that I learned more and now have more confidence with the bricks with the tinkering approach. Having a purpose kept me determined to find a solution. I so appreciate those that share their ideas to provide that needed support.
What might you want to try next?
I stumbled upon other motion solutions for my next tinkering session and saw that there is a Scratch Lego Boost extension to check out.
This really was hard fun!
I’ve been tinkering with my UI Soccer App project recently. I’m working on making it perfect in every perspective, such as colour, updated news, etc.
From this project I learned to be more thorough in combining all the data that I will input into the UI design of this application. And, what I will do next for this UI project is to realise this UI design in an actual application.
Hey folks! I had some time off so I wasn’t super present of late. Now I’m back to share what I’ve been tinkering with this week. As Scratch is celebrating its 15th birthday, I wanted to make a project for one of Scratch Week’s studios. Today’s studio is “Tinker with Fashion”. Initially I wanted to make a shoe-related project, drawing shoes with a stylus. Well, when I got to doing it, I realized my stylus drawings are not where I want them to be yet lol. The lines are shaky and I need more practice. Example:
So I ended up using the sprites from Scratch library which size I adjusted. I added some text to speech, text itself, music, some dancing, and voila! The project is ready. I kept adjusting the wait time to make sure text to speech feature and blurbs work at the same time. It took time to make the timing work well hehe. Conclusions: sometimes we overestimate how long it takes to transfer skills from one medium to another, and it’s okay! It’s a chance to see the gaps and make adjustments:). Next time I’ll need to allocate more time to practice a new skill (drawing with stylus in this case). And here’s my project https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/693601176
This week, I decided to play around with Java programming language.
I went read some lesson about it and decided to create this small box of number that looks like a matrix in math during the process of learning and experiencing with this language.
There’s so much things in Java that I think its possible to create something like an app or game with this programming language. I will do my best on continuing learn and experience with this language.
I did something similar. I needed to format something with google sheets, since I lost my access to MS office. So, I decided to tinker a bit with the Google Apps script to see if it could easily do what I wanted.
This was totally new to me but I felt pretty comfortable that a new scripting language would be the best way to create exactly the solution that I wanted. I started by watching some videos and reading documentation until I got enough of a grasp to go off on my own. And if I ran into more problems I just went back to videos and documentation to learn more. It’s fun to do this and I’ll keep expanding this new tool to make my project better and better.
Hi Carlos, I just got a wonderful book by Barbara Reid, who illustrates children’s books with plastercine. I’ve used yoghurt container lids as my frame in the past and with students. Barbara Reid even has a book on drawing with plastercine. When I went to look it up, I found this video: Making Plasticine Pictures: Part 1 - YouTube
Tinker on!
My thinkering is around outdoor learning. My students are currently obsessed with snails. We’ve been out in our pollination garden, participating in Gillian Judson’s #Walkingcurriculum challenge, doing texture walks, colour walks, lovely/unlovely and after finding and cleaning an aquarium, I’m thinking we want to bring some snails inside for a chance to closely observe for a while and then return them back to their habitat.
A look at wikipedia had me really worried, but thankfully none of the harmful parasites that can transfer to humans live in North America so we just need to be careful our hands are clean and not full of chemicals (sanitizer) before we handle them. So, on top of my how to set up the habitat pondering, I’m now thinking about an outdoor hand washing station that is efficient, accessible and kind to our space.
Jillian talks about perceiving and thinking and has adopted the coined phrase perfinker for her Twitter name. I am so happy to be outside with my students. It feels expansive and full of wonder and adventure.
This week, I began tinkering with a Makey Makey set I’ve had for some time. I bought it because I saw how it could be used with Scratch and provide circuitry engagement to my students, but hadn’t been motivated to use it yet. I was impressed with how easy it was to get started and the ways in can interact with my computer (and fruit!)
Since this was my first time tinkering with Makey Makey, everything I tried was new, however, it was super engaging and the entire time I was working with it, I kept thinking about how I could use this with my students. I do want to try using it with Scratch projects, so that is next on my to-do list!
What I did notice was that, while I was reluctant to try it out, once I did, I forget all about my initial reluctance and uncertainty of what to expect. I need to keep this in mind while working with my students. Many of them are like me, in that they are nervous or anxious to try new things. Many of them have not been given the freedom to play or tinker and they are reluctant because they don’t want to do something “wrong.” Encouraging the play and tinkering mindset will help them, and me, become much more creative thinkers! :)
Hola a todos y todas, estoy aprendiendo a trabajar con makey makey, estuve jugando con cosas básicas para mover a Scratch en distintas direcciones y quiero asociar un programa de Scratch más complejo con Makey Makey. Aprendiendo a usar distintos materiales para los comandos
saludos
@bea, Scratch Cat ‘flying’ around to this music with the makey makey is so joyful to watch
Scratch Cat ‘volando’ alrededor de esta música con el makey makey es tan alegre de ver
