Scratch

Scratch is an innovation that allows students to create games and animations. This program allows students to program they're own games and animations. This can then be incorporated into classrooms to assist students with learning a variety of subjects.

This is a simple Scratch Animation that I created:




There are a number of pro's and con's regarding this innovation.
The pro's include it being relevant to a large majority of students interests, this application is fun and will engage students. Animations can be done by students or prepared by teachers.
The con's regarding this innovation include that it is time consuming, the help available is limited to certain areas of the program which could result in lessons being to long to be realistically implemented within a classroom. As well as this, students who are not regularly using computers or who are not interested in using computers or technology such as this may find this too difficult or not become engaged. This could result in students not benefiting from the lesson.

In my opinion, Scratch is best used in a classroom when games or animations are pre prepared by the teacher and implemented as an aid or resource within a lesson. Scratch games and animations can be used on a SMARTboard which would again engage students and assist in making the application usable for the whole class.