Growing My Coding Education Portfolio: Reflecting on My First Year as a Scratch Learning Resource Designer • Codified Concepts

I’ve been a member of the Scratch Team in various roles since the Spring of 2019, but in the past year, I was privileged to move into a dream role and become a Learning Resource Designer for the Scratch Foundation. Whether working for my university, in the publishing industry as a managing editor for Random House for over 10 years, or with clients while developing their websites, I often found myself creating training manuals, filming instructional videos, and thinking a lot about how to empower my learning audience and the tools they needed for success, as we rolled out new platforms and practices. Now, I get to combine my twin passions for education and coding in my role as a Learning Resource Designer working with the Scratch Programs team to develop new creative learning resources and engagement experiences for Scratchers and educators, giving them the building blocks and the confidence to try new things, iterate, and reach further.

Having a website I coded myself gives me the platform to reflect and showcase my skills, my passions, and what I’ve been creating and experimenting with (like my experience at the Logo Summer Institute this past summer), so I thought I’d share some of the things I have created in my time so far as a resource designer. (You may also want to check out my post “Day in My Life as a Learning Resource Designer.”)

Scratch and the Achievery

I actually started creating some tutorial videos on a contract basis while serving as a Community Engagement Specialist for Scratch six months before officially becoming a Learning Resource Designer. As part of our partnership with the Achievery (a free online learning platform created by AT&T), I created one to three tutorial videos each for all 50 units we produced in 2023, for a total of 61 original videos. I also created the project guides for 22 of the 50 units, and co-created 11 with a writing partner. You can find those units here: https://www.theachievery.com/content/units/?partner=Scratch.

At the end of the year, I had the privilege of speaking with Connected Nation about our Achievery partnership, the power of creative coding, and how parents and educators can model a growth mindset for our learners. (Fun fact: I also created the backdrop you see behind me in the video!)

Guides, Lessons, Graphics, and More

While I love video as one vehicle for learning, I recognize the importance of having multiple avenues to communicate information. This year, I worked to update some of the main written guides we already had in place (like our Getting Started, Teacher, and Studio guides that had fallen out of date), and I created originals like our Getting Started in the Online Community and Event Studios guides.

Working off of assets created by my design and community colleagues, I used Adobe Illustrator and remixed assets to create new graphics, as needed, to illustrate key information and add some fun to our guides while templating out our updated look. And I employed them when using Adobe After Effects to create animated sequences for my videos.

I also focused on creating new resources for educators like our Scratch Design Journal and Debugging Strategies Posters, guides to accompany my tutorial videos, and guides for many of our online community events.

I took the lead in co-creating two lesson plans (something new for Scratch): “Bring Yourself Into Scratch” (which explores multiple pathways for students to share their identity, voice, and creativity through development of a unique asset/sprite in Scratch that is meaningful to them) and “Getting Started with Scratch, Experiencing Creative Learning: Paper Planes, Turtles Graphics, and Computational Concepts” (which explores the computational concepts of decomposition and sequence in unplugged and digital environments by creating paper planes and then a Scratch program to draw shapes). And I’m excited that my colleague Jacy and I will be presenting a lesson I helped write-up titled “Exploring Scratch & AI: Possibilities & Pitfalls” in June at ISTELive 24.

Scratch Events

Though I’ve been with Scratch and attending virtual events for years, 2023 marked my first time attending Scratch Day in-person in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I was finally able to meet colleagues in real life, as well as Scratch co-creators Mitchel Resnick (Professor of Learning Research at the MIT Media Lab) and Natalie Rusk (research scientist at the MIT Media Lab). It was amazing seeing all the participants creating and learning through play! See if you can spot me in a few places in the wrap-up short commemorating the day.

And I went from attendee to facilitator for a few Scratch Conference sessions this year, hosting some amazing educators for two great dialogues after their ignite sessions. You can see the videos of those sessions in my YouTube playlist or on the Scratch Foundation’s YouTube channel (Scratch Conference 2023: Create and Connect 2 and 4). I’m excited to already be working with my colleagues on activities and guides for Scratch Days and Scratch Conference 2024.

Experiments in 3D

As a lifelong learner, I embrace the 4P’s (Projects, Passions, Peers, and Play) and can often be found tinkering on anything from crafts to 3D printing to robots to emerging technologies, along with my favorite pursuit of solving coding mysteries. So this year, after we got a small 3D printer, I challenged myself to learn how to design 3D objects. Using Adobe Illustrator and Tinkercad, I recreated Scratch Cat and Scratch blocks with removable inserts and expandable pieces. Then, I made a few additional iconic sprites into earrings and a name tag to wear at Scratch events. I also made a Makey Makey controller. They make for fun talking points for sure!

After sharing my experiments, I was asked to create and facilitate a workshop on Tinkercad and Scratch for our Scratch Education Collaborative (SEC) members. It was well received, and we explored comparisons between Tinkercad’s CodeBlocks and creating shapes with Scratch’s pen tools. You can see a few screenshots of my workshop presentation here.

I hope you’ll continue to follow my work, experiment and tinker with me, and provide constructive feedback as I produce more videos, guides, workshops, and projects! I try to post on my Instagram and LinkedIn (recent activity to see my posts) as my new work becomes available.