Term 3- Scratch Programming Project.

Hello everyone. I am back. You might be wondering, what I am doing in IT, since THE TECH FAIR IS NOW OVER! (By the way, I was in it! :) )


We, the entire 7BB class, have started a new topic and its called: Programming with Scratch. When we all first heard it, we all exploded with happiness.

We were given an introduction on what it was. Basically, people nowadays usually are good with technology but are not making anything new. So, encourage creating new things, we have started using the program called Scratch. Scratch so happens to be a program that was created by MIT. (Mechanical Institute of Technology.)

We started by opening the app like so; nearly all the school computers have the Scratch app.
Later, we started were given a quick explanation on what we had to do in the Scratch Program.

Finally, this is the part of the lesson I enjoyed the most, we were given 10-15 mins to play around with the program and make our Sprite (the main and most important thing about Scratch.) move and do cool stuff.

I was able to make my Sprite move and, as it moved one step, the color of the Sprite changed. I was also able to make my Sprite say, "What's your name?" in a speech bubble. Ms. Veena thought it was cool and I was glad about that.

I was just wondering, compared to some of the Programming in the technological world, how is this supposed to be good. I was also thinking, what our topic assessment was going to be. I thought that we might have to make our Sprite do a bunch cool things.

The first lesson of that topic not bad, but it isn't really good, compared to other subjects, like the 2nd lesson of the Tech Fair. Hopefully this will be fun and that it's not too pressurizing.


17/4/2016.

Statement of Inquiry:
Computational Creation enables me to create.

Introduction:
In term 3, we will be working on Scratch Programming. This is a creative computing and enables us to explore various sprites and commands in Scratch.

Global Context:

Personal and Cultural Expression.

ATL Skills are INFORMATION LITERACY AND COMMUNICATION. 

Information Literacy:
I will be using my research skills to learn Scratch programming codes and controls using scratch program. I will be using Scratch help from the pull down menu as well as watch other videos and on Scratch Programming codes enable me to complete the program. The "The Storyboard That" website should enable me to create online Scratch Programming codes and Scratch Videos.


Communication:
For my last and final Scratch Program: I want to create a Scratch Video because, I want to show the audience, spreading awareness, by creating a Scratch Program. I want to spread awareness to the audience, and to the workers within the factories. If it is good enough, I want it to go the higher managers of the UAE. (Sheikh's Advisors, etc.). In the end, I want to make sure that the UAE is a better place. This has a small chance of helping the UAE reach the top 5 countries of the world.


Task 1-About me:



What's on top?! A very badly drawn guy in the corridors. As if this were a horror movie.
Don't worry, it's just what I was able to make from Scratch and was able to post on his blog.

And below is the code of the program, from Scratch.

I started by opening up the Scratch Program. Then I deleted the Sprite. The Sprite looks like a cat. So instead, I got rid of him and made a picture of myself.

Then I gave my new character commands. If you try if out, there are lots of commands. For Example, if you press the right button, my character will say, "I live in Dubai, UAE, in a medium-sized house.

There are many more types of commands, but I won't tell of them to you. What I will tell is that you need to press the following keys to get certain commands. (All my character does is to say different things):

• Click the Green flag.
• Click the character himself.
• Press the left key.
• Press the right key. 
• Press the up key.
• Press the down key.
• Press the Space Bar. 

If you do all these commands, my character will say many different things. 

Right now, it is really bad and doesn't do anything else but to talk. If I play more with the Program, maybe I could make it better.  


24/4/2016.

Here is another program created by Scratch. It was awesome and easy to make.

Here is the code used to create the program above:

I started by creating 3 backgrounds; a white and plain background, a background with a house drawn by myself and a picture of the Grand-Canyon.

Then, I used a control feature. The feature basically gives this function: When I pressed the space-bar, the cat moves and as the cat moves, the background changes to the backgrounds that I set it to.

I decided that the usual orange and white cat was too weird and normal. So I decided to change the "Sprite" to black and make an actual real life cat.

Later, when I told Ms. Veena that I was finished, she told me to do more. Like to add more backgrounds and to make the cat say, "I am Cool Cat." using my voice and proper audio.

Sadly, I forgot to add more backgrounds, but I, when the voice of the class dipped very sharply down, I immediately recorded my voice and it worked amazingly! (except where Ms. Veena was telling us to shut down the Laptops.)

The Scratch Programming was really easy to finish and upload. The Programming itself is quite simple if you take a few ideas from people and learn how to do certain things. That, by the way, did. When Ms. Veena was quickly showing us the program she made, I got the idea of changing my background and also how to do that.

Finally, in the end of the class today, I was quite happy, felt quite accomplished and thought I did a lot of hard work very quickly.



26/4/2016.

Scratch Project: Term 3.


Introduction:

For this term, I have been asked to create a story using Scratch Programming. The Story should either create an awareness of an environmental issue, social issue or something that interests me. This


Criteria A- Inquiry and Analysis.

So for me to be to do the task, mentioned above, I need to start by thinking what my story is going to be about. For this, I think I will do air pollution. This is because, since I live in the UAE, they (the UAE) want to be apart of the Top Countries in the entire world (Hopefully they will succeed).

Personally, I feel that, if the UAE want to be in the top rankings, they should focus on air pollution. If they can do this, the world can be a much better place. Deadly gases will not be inhaled. This will also excel the UAE to be in the top ranks. In fact, the one of the pillars of the Vision of 2021 is have a more environmental friendly country.

I have done some research on how the UAE can be more environmental. Here is the link:
http://des.nh.gov/organization/divisions/air/tsb/ams/aqmdp/share.htmhttp://des.nh.gov/organization/divisions/air/tsb/ams/aqmdp/share.htm 

In this website, there are 15 ideas on how to save the environment, regarding air pollution. This will be difficult for me actually because, I don't have many ideas on how I can make a Scratch Program regarding that. Hopefully though, I will have an idea.

 I will be using a website called: www. storyboardthat.com to create a storyboard, related to my Scratch Program. Actually, we are told that we have to make a storyboard. So we were given the choice to draw one and color. Or we could use storyboardthat.com. So, since I am bad at drawing, I decided to use the website.

I am really nervous. Hopefully I will be able to excel and finish the storyboard and the Scratch Program. This is program, by the way, is due on the end of May.


8/5/2016.

Hello everyone, sorry I haven't blogged in a while. I have been working intensely on my Scratch Program and making storyboards for it. Finally, I have time to blog and tell you everything I've been doing.

So, since I didn't check my blog, I didn't know what the due date of the Scratch Program was. (This is the only place where I know what the due date was.). Now, because of this, I worked under a lot of pressure and have been working extremely fast and giving a lot of time in it. This means, that I am pretty much ahead of the rest of the class.


I had to start, by making 2 storyboards on my Scratch Program. I ACTUALLY didn't know we had to do make 2 storyboards, I thought we had to make only 1. But, I was later told to make another one, so I made another one, except that, I didn't need put any of the 2nd storyboard information in my Scratch.

Here are my 2 Storyboards:

This is the 1st one and, the one that I thought we had to make:

I put a lot of effort in it because I thought that this was the one that was going to be the main and only one. (But I was wrong.). It's more than 4 boxes because we could have more than 4 cells. But it so happens to be that we were only supposed to be 4 cells.

I started by making more cells. Then, I decided to fill out the white cells with some background, so I got a city-designed cell. Then, I got a Sprite from the Internet and snipped of it. Then, I uploaded him into my storyboard. Then the hard part was when I was creating the Sad Person and the Happy person. I had to use Paint to create them and then snip them. Then, I added the speech and concluded.

This is the 2nd one:

Now this one I feel was very well made. Quite possibly better than the 1st one! For one, this was made after I found out that we needed only 4 cells. So I decided to make another one of the top of my head. So I decided to make this. I first applied the background. Then, very creatively and professionally, I added the smoke fumes. Then I had to add the cars and put the fumes. I also had to re-snip the Sprite of the Internet.

Now, the Teleporter is the same Teleporter from the mobile/Tablet/IPad app called, "Jetpack Joyride." I needed to find the teleporter. After searching for quite a while, I finally got the right teleporter. The last cell was quite easy to make in the end. I just needed a Textable, the Sprite and a nice Countyside photo.


I feel I did really well. Both the Storyboards are very nice but like I mentioned above, I like the 2nd one better. They both follow the same concept. They both are trying to put an effect on the audience, to stop air polluting.

The 1st one can be improved because by adding a bit more laughter I guess. Also, I could've made the less commands. Otherwise, I am not too sad with it.

The 2nd is beautifully constructed, by using jokes and good Digital Design Skills. Yet at the same time, it's not having a good impact regarding Air Pollution, so I could improve on that.

THE MOMENT YOU'VE LOOKING FORWARD TO...

Being the very nervous and fearing person I am, I put myself under a lot of pressure and decided to work extra hard. So I not only did I finish my storyboards, but I also finished my Scratch Program! Here it is!

There is also list of commands which contains what will happen. The letter/key/arrow and the consequence pressing it. Here is the list:

Above are all the commands. This means that if you see what it says in Bold, it tells which key to press. Then there is the regular, non-bold words: These show what will happen, if you press the button. 

THE COMMANDS ARE TO BE FOLLOWED IN THE WAY THEY ARE LISTED. THIS MEANS THAT YOU START BY PRESSING THE GREEN FLAG AND END, WATCHING THE SCRATCH PROGRAM, BY PRESSING THE G KEY. 

Sorry, but that there is a big line between the words "Dude" and "says". That is the line that comes from clicking on something using the cursor. So I accidentally snipped that with it. 

I feel that I have done well and that this Scratch Program was easy to make. The students/teachers in MIT are truly smart, and create extra-ordinary things. I really appreciate their work.

If there is anyone who should use the Scratch Program, then it should be kids from ages 8-13 years of age. Anything below that, might not/will not understand the program. Anything above the suggested range, may not be very amused. 

I enjoyed creating the Scratch Program and the others as well (My 1st one and the 2nd one.) and felt is really made me push myself to be more organized and more thoughtful of the program. I hope there will be more things to come.

17/5/2016

I am sorry I haven't blogged for the past  9 days, I ave been busy working on my Scratch Program (and other subjects.) so much, that I forgot that, I needed to update by blog. 

The final Scratch has been changing a lot. What I realized was, that when I update my Scratch Program, it updated on my blog as well. This has made it hard for me to tell you the updates I made. I'll try anyway. 

You see, every time you had to pressed a command, you had to press the Blue Tick Button. Now, Ms. Veena told me to get rid of that. So, I added a similar command, that had speech and was, on the screen for a certain time. Eg: The speech what a wonderful day at Abu Dhabi. When the scratch would say that, they would ask for a reply. So now I, I made sure that only the scratch said the speech and didn't ask for a reply. 

Another update was the audio I added at the end. 

I started by asking Rakan, a boy in my class, for his phone; I can record my voice. Then, with the recorded voice, I sent it to myself. Then, from my computer, I uploaded the voice onto the Scratch Program. This is how I uploaded audio in my Scratch Program.

24/5/2016.

I was looking at Andrija's Scratch Program, and noticed a "Wait" command in his Scripts. So I also decided to add a "Wait" command to MY Scratch program. Now, when you press the "X" Key, you will notice that the speech of the Sad Dude will appear a little bit later. So, to summarize, when you press the "X" Key is pressed, the Sad Dude will wait for 2 seconds and then says his speech. 

Then after typing this and thinking about it, I decided to add some credits. So, in my credits, I put Andrija's name and Rakan's name. I added at the end of the Video, "Special Thanks to Andrija and Rakan, for being the parts that created this video." 

31/5/2016.

Hello viewers. Sorry I haven't been blogging for the past 7 days, 1 week. But here I am now! So, I have finished my Scratch Program and I had to do 3 things. 

I had to do a self-evaluation and 2 peer evaluations. Of course, I had to decide the people I needed to evaluate. So, quickly, I decided to do my peer evaluations with Ali and Omar. 

This is the self evaluation I completed.

I feel I marked myself fairly with a normal heart. Not too fair, not too unfair. Everything that my self evaluation was marking me on, was half of what I did. Eg: "I made my Sprite talk and think". for this, I had only made the Sprite talk and never thought. So I did half of it. 

Please remember that I had to get the self evaluation criteria from ManageBac, from my IT teacher. 


Below is the Peer Evaluation that OMAR sent to me FOR MY SCRATCH PROGRAM!

I feel that I agree with Omar's evaluation to MY scratch program. I feel that my Originality was quite good. I also agree with the rest of them. I felt that I had improved my Creativity by using more, complex commands, I used more backgrounds as well, I only did use a few Sprites, my scripts were quite basic and there were little scripts but, I feel that my Theme was quite straight forward and easy to understand and I feel I deserve a 3 for Purpose/Project Theme. 


But sadly, I am missing 2 pieces of work. The 1st one is Ali's Reflection to me and, my Peer Evaluation to Omar. Now, I do have 1 reason for each piece of info that I have not both of those pieces of work. The reasons are: 

• Ali does have the Peer Evaluation done, told me that, but he didn't send it to me. 
• Omar did not give me his link for me to do his Scratch Program. 

BY THE WAY, THE PIECE OF WORK (FROM ME TO ALI) IS ALREADY COMPLETED. I HAVEN'T PUT IT ON MY BLOG YET. (SORRY ABOUT THAT.) :(

Hopefully, I will have these 3 pieces of work done and up here on my blog.

8/6/2016


I hope its not too late to say that I have my peer evaluation from me to Ali. Here it is below.

The reason that there is a pic of Ali's Gmail account is because, I took my Peer Evaluation from his blog. The reason for THAT is because I, couldn't find it in my computer. Now though I got on my blog. :)