Dr. Fadjo’s presentation was very interesting and informative, especially when describing literacy.

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 I never truly thought about what literacy truly meant; I just defined it as someone who could read novels, books, etc.  Whereas, illiteracy defined someone who couldn’t read novels, books, etc.  He went on to describe other states of literacy: such as computer literacy, medical literacy, etc.  The four things we do: Comprehend, Compose, Analyze, and Communicate, and the four things upon which we act: Symbols, Constructs, Depictions, and Representations also intrigued me.  In his words,

“To comprehend is to grasp something mentally or to understand.  We typically define something for ourselves by defining it on our own terms. If we are asked to demonstrate that we comprehend something, we communicate it through dialogue and evaluation, both formal and informal.” (Fadjo, 2012)

Comprehension is very important because students can read something which just goes right over their head until it’s done; whereas, if a students both reads and comprehends, they are able to learn something concrete from their reading material or other thing.

Personally, I enjoyed using Scratch and I can see its potential use for students.  (http://scratch.mit.edu/) However, I believe that it would take much more time to teach to students than one week.  I wish that I had downloaded it earlier and used it prior to last week.  I believe that my only difficulties were timing-based towards the end of the project.  I couldn’t get the two characters to speak to one another through the use of the green button so I assigned them the a,s,d buttons.  I largely figured it out through trial and error and notes I had taken during Dr. Fadjo’s presentation.  The website was also a helpful resource because I was able to see other projects and what Scratch was truly capable of given more time to work with.  In hindsight, I could’ve asked my other classmates but I didn’t think of it at the time. 

Scratch could definitely be used in the classroom because with time, students could create truly great projects on their own or with group members too.  I believe that it’s easily applicable to Math, Science, Social Studies, Language Arts, etc.  While browsing the Scratch Website,  I saw projects devoted to each of these subjects so I’m assuming that it could be used for nearly every subject which students are going to encounter throughout their school career.

Personally, I could picture myself using Scratch with a Social Studies Classroom because of the large amount of projects witnessed on the Scratch Website.  There were projects devoted to the American Revolution, the War Between the States, etc.  I would have to acquaint myself much more with the Scratch Program because I’ve never truly worked with any computer programming myself.  With time and experience, I can easily see Scratch being used to help students learn about nearly everything.