full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Mitch Resnick: Let's teach kids to code

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Let me show you an example. Here's another project, and I saw this when I was visiting one of the computer clubhouses. These are after-school learning centers that we helped start that help young people from low-income ciimumetnos learn to express themselves creatively with new technologies. And when I went to one of the clubhouses a cpuloe years ago, I saw a 13-year-old boy who was using our satrcch software to create a game somewhat like this one, and he was very hppay with his game and proud of his game, but also he wanted to do more. He wanted to keep score. So this was a game where the big fish eats the little fish, but he wanted to keep sroce, so that each time the big fish eats the little fish, the score would go up and it would keep track, and he didn't know how to do that. So I shwoed him. In Scratch, you can ctraee something clelad a variable. I'll call it score. And that creetas some new blocks for you, and also creates a little scoreboard that keeps track of the score, so each time I click on "change score," it increments the score. So I showed this to the cuhbsluoe member — let's call him Victor — and Victor, when he saw that this block would let him increment the score, he knew exactly what to do. He took the bcolk and he put it into the program exactly where the big fish eats the little fish. So then, each time the big fish eats the little fish, he will increment the score, and the score will go up by one. And it's in fact working. And he saw this, and he was so excited, he reached his hand out to me, and he said, "Thank you, thank you, thank you." And what went through my mind was, how often is it that teachers are thanked by their stdtunes for teaching them veiaalbrs? (Laughter) It doesn't happen in most classrooms, but that's because in most classrooms, when kids learn about variables, they don't know why they're learning it. It's nothing that, really, they can make use of. When you learn iades like this in Scratch, you can learn it in a way that's really meaningful and motivating for you, that you can understand the reason for lairneng variables, and we see that kids learn it more deeply and learn it better. vitocr had, I'm sure, been taught about variables in shoolcs, but he really didn't — he wasn't paying attention. Now he had a reosan for learning variables. So when you learn through coding, and coding to learn, you're learning it in a meaningful context, and that's the best way of learning things.

Open Cloze


Let me show you an example. Here's another project, and I saw this when I was visiting one of the computer clubhouses. These are after-school learning centers that we helped start that help young people from low-income ___________ learn to express themselves creatively with new technologies. And when I went to one of the clubhouses a ______ years ago, I saw a 13-year-old boy who was using our _______ software to create a game somewhat like this one, and he was very _____ with his game and proud of his game, but also he wanted to do more. He wanted to keep score. So this was a game where the big fish eats the little fish, but he wanted to keep _____, so that each time the big fish eats the little fish, the score would go up and it would keep track, and he didn't know how to do that. So I ______ him. In Scratch, you can ______ something ______ a variable. I'll call it score. And that _______ some new blocks for you, and also creates a little scoreboard that keeps track of the score, so each time I click on "change score," it increments the score. So I showed this to the _________ member — let's call him Victor — and Victor, when he saw that this block would let him increment the score, he knew exactly what to do. He took the _____ and he put it into the program exactly where the big fish eats the little fish. So then, each time the big fish eats the little fish, he will increment the score, and the score will go up by one. And it's in fact working. And he saw this, and he was so excited, he reached his hand out to me, and he said, "Thank you, thank you, thank you." And what went through my mind was, how often is it that teachers are thanked by their ________ for teaching them _________? (Laughter) It doesn't happen in most classrooms, but that's because in most classrooms, when kids learn about variables, they don't know why they're learning it. It's nothing that, really, they can make use of. When you learn _____ like this in Scratch, you can learn it in a way that's really meaningful and motivating for you, that you can understand the reason for ________ variables, and we see that kids learn it more deeply and learn it better. ______ had, I'm sure, been taught about variables in _______, but he really didn't — he wasn't paying attention. Now he had a ______ for learning variables. So when you learn through coding, and coding to learn, you're learning it in a meaningful context, and that's the best way of learning things.

Solution


  1. called
  2. showed
  3. schools
  4. couple
  5. create
  6. students
  7. reason
  8. clubhouse
  9. score
  10. ideas
  11. variables
  12. block
  13. learning
  14. communities
  15. victor
  16. happy
  17. creates
  18. scratch

Original Text


Let me show you an example. Here's another project, and I saw this when I was visiting one of the computer clubhouses. These are after-school learning centers that we helped start that help young people from low-income communities learn to express themselves creatively with new technologies. And when I went to one of the clubhouses a couple years ago, I saw a 13-year-old boy who was using our Scratch software to create a game somewhat like this one, and he was very happy with his game and proud of his game, but also he wanted to do more. He wanted to keep score. So this was a game where the big fish eats the little fish, but he wanted to keep score, so that each time the big fish eats the little fish, the score would go up and it would keep track, and he didn't know how to do that. So I showed him. In Scratch, you can create something called a variable. I'll call it score. And that creates some new blocks for you, and also creates a little scoreboard that keeps track of the score, so each time I click on "change score," it increments the score. So I showed this to the clubhouse member — let's call him Victor — and Victor, when he saw that this block would let him increment the score, he knew exactly what to do. He took the block and he put it into the program exactly where the big fish eats the little fish. So then, each time the big fish eats the little fish, he will increment the score, and the score will go up by one. And it's in fact working. And he saw this, and he was so excited, he reached his hand out to me, and he said, "Thank you, thank you, thank you." And what went through my mind was, how often is it that teachers are thanked by their students for teaching them variables? (Laughter) It doesn't happen in most classrooms, but that's because in most classrooms, when kids learn about variables, they don't know why they're learning it. It's nothing that, really, they can make use of. When you learn ideas like this in Scratch, you can learn it in a way that's really meaningful and motivating for you, that you can understand the reason for learning variables, and we see that kids learn it more deeply and learn it better. Victor had, I'm sure, been taught about variables in schools, but he really didn't — he wasn't paying attention. Now he had a reason for learning variables. So when you learn through coding, and coding to learn, you're learning it in a meaningful context, and that's the best way of learning things.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
young people 9
day cards 5
big fish 5
fish eats 4
scratch software 2
scratch website 2
start expressing 2
people today 2
michael bloomberg 2
physical world 2
light sensor 2
sensor detects 2
creating projects 2
kids learn 2
professional computer 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
big fish eats 4
young people today 2
light sensor detects 2

Important Words


  1. attention
  2. big
  3. block
  4. blocks
  5. boy
  6. call
  7. called
  8. centers
  9. classrooms
  10. click
  11. clubhouse
  12. clubhouses
  13. coding
  14. communities
  15. computer
  16. context
  17. couple
  18. create
  19. creates
  20. creatively
  21. deeply
  22. eats
  23. excited
  24. express
  25. fact
  26. fish
  27. game
  28. hand
  29. happen
  30. happy
  31. helped
  32. ideas
  33. increment
  34. increments
  35. kids
  36. knew
  37. laughter
  38. learn
  39. learning
  40. meaningful
  41. member
  42. mind
  43. motivating
  44. paying
  45. people
  46. program
  47. project
  48. proud
  49. put
  50. reached
  51. reason
  52. schools
  53. score
  54. scoreboard
  55. scratch
  56. show
  57. showed
  58. software
  59. start
  60. students
  61. taught
  62. teachers
  63. teaching
  64. technologies
  65. thanked
  66. time
  67. track
  68. understand
  69. variable
  70. variables
  71. victor
  72. visiting
  73. wanted
  74. working
  75. years
  76. young