Digital Storytelling - Sequencing of Events Using Scratch Platform

Starting with Scratch – Join Scratch and Explore

Working with a class of 40, I tried to think of ways and means to carry out this lesson.

As I met my students’ parents at the beginning of the year, I enlisted their help by asking them to use their emails for their kids to join Scratch.

I used flipped learning to get the students to create a simple task on “About Me”. They watched a video by the Scratch Team. They explored and worked on the task. It was a great way to get them started, especially with a tight curriculum in the school. All joined and were eager to present.

Application of basic story structure (Beginning, Problem, Action and Ending), time connectives and past tense in storyboarding

The students generally could identify the story structure and use the time connectives and past tense in storyboarding. They enjoyed the activity and came up with interesting stories as shown in the examples below:

Though the stories are very interesting, the students would have problems trying to get the sprites for the suitable characters. I have told them to be flexible and make changes to the setting or characters but not the story. I needed to ask them to change the statements into dialogues. It seemed quite confusing for them. Maybe I should have given them speech balloons instead.

From the storyboarding, I noticed that students were comfortable coming up with stories of their own level. This activity supported diverse learners.

Creation of the 4-scene using Scratch

Though the students created the storyboard in pairs, I have decided to ask them to create on the Scratch individually based on the same story created with their partners. This would allow creativity and variations.

Creating the 4-scene on Scratch is not easy for the students. They took a much longer time than planned. I was not able to complete within one lesson.

Challenges faced:

• Tight curriculum during school time
• Large enrollment in a class – 40 students
• Students could not remember their passwords or did not enter correctly, so they could not login.
• Readiness – Some students are not familiar with the features though they have gone through a task on ‘About Me’ as flipped learning. To some of them, this is their first time trying to use Scratch.

Solutions for the above challenges:

• Assigned parts of the tasks at home
• Students to help each other
• Worked with his partner first and then troubleshoot the passwords at home
• Students will create one scene at a time. They will be given more time to complete. Instructions are printed to guide them.

Student’s work