Making Cartoons and Games with Scratch

I like asking teachers, musicians, and others what their favorite software is for graphics, recording, etc. Last night I asked my friend Charlie Morse what software he uses to teach elementary school students about computers and art. He recommended a free program from MIT for Windows or Mac OS X called Scratch. Here's MIT's description of the product:

Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web.

Scratch is designed for kids, though: kids learn to program by fitting various commands together like a jigsaw puzzle and then seeing the effect of those commands in a cartoon. Here's a test I did last night using a dialogue in Coushatta by Jeanette Langley and Janice Sylestine (click on the image):



Scratch has many applications for language teaching. Students and teachers could build an image of a classroom, for example, and then attach recordings to different objects in the classroom. Or they could construct a cartoon that could be embedded in a website and shown to others. Kids can even record themselves saying words if their computer has a microphone.

Because Scratch can be programmed, it's possible for kids to create interactive games and quizzes. My second test was designed to teach animals and then test them (a little like Rosetta Stone):



Scratch is designed for kids aged 8 and up. I would want to spend a lot of time playing with the program before I tried teaching it.

Editing Sounds with Audacity

Linguists and language teachers frequently need to edit or modify sound recordings: they may want to cut just one word out of a long recording, reduce background noise, normalize the volume of several recordings, cut parts of a recording out, or change the format of a recording to mp3 or another format.

Audacity is a free, open-source sound editor that is fairly easy to use and performs all the above functions admirably. Audacity is available for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. There are many websites describing how to use Audacity, including this one.

Drawing Software for Kids: Tux Paint

Tux Paint is a free, open-source drawing program for children aged 3 to 12. It can run on Windows, Mac OS X, and other platforms. With Tux Paint, it's easy to make drawings, add stamps (images) from their stamp library, and add text. Each time you use a stamp, the name of the image is read aloud. Below is the sum of my efforts, with a label in Koasati:


Because it's open source, Tux Paint is also customizable. With some preparation and help, teachers can create their own library of images and even record words in their own languages. Artwork can be printed or saved and edited for use in flash cards, calendars, and other projects.

Teachers should plan to spend some time reading the documentation and may need just a little help from a techie. It took me a long time to find where drawings were stored in Vista. I'm looking forward to playing with this more, though, and I'm quite a bit older than 12!