Blue Unit: Computational Tinkering
REMIX: Ideating and Iterating Code: Scratch Example
Betty Bayer and Stephanie Shallcross
This “real life” hands-on project by four information science graduate students provides a step-by-step example of ideation and iteration of code to support counterstories.
The Process: Inspiration and Ideation
As a group of four current and future educators, we knew we wanted to focus on one person, whose story is not well known in the history of technology, and we wanted the game to be fun and accessible for late elementary students. We were particularly interested in inspiring young girls because women, as a whole, are a group that is underrepresented in technological fields. Often when children are taught the history of technology, women who have contributed to the field are left out. We hoped that by creating a game that was fun and accessible for late elementary students young girls who were interested in technology would be inspired to learn, create and change the way women are represented in technology fields.
From this initial spark of inspiration, we quickly moved into the ideation phase. Fueled by the recent release of the picture book Grace Hopper: Queen of Computer Code by Laurie Wallmark, the group chose to focus on Grace Hopper. Much of the initial debate focused on whether or not Grace Hopper’s story was truly a counter-story. However, we decided that since none of us—four educated women, who work with children and technology—had heard of her, her story did indeed meet the requirements of a counter-story.
Then, the group member who had by far the most experience coding with Scratch, suggested using a maze with scrambled letters to decode.[1] This seemed both feasible technically for us and fun and accessible for our target audience. We decided we wanted to have multiple levels of the game, each telling a different story about Hopper’s life. We were especially enthused about telling the story of Hopper finding the moth—the literal “bug”—in the Mark 2 computer because (A) it’s fun and will engage students, but also (B) the term “bug” is mainstream technology terminology, but few people know it was coined by a woman. Knowing this story—and Grace Hopper’s in general—can allow girls to see themselves in the mainstream history of technology, and in the terms and code we use today. We also discussed possible stories for the other levels, and some of Hopper’s more pithy and applicable quotes we could work into the game [See Image 1].
The Process: Iteration
In an early iteration, we planned to include three mazes. However since one of the reasons we were taking the course was to improve our technical skills, we decided it would be ideal if all four members of the group gained experience in Scratch. So, we decided early on that the best course of action would be to have each group member individually code a level of the game.
Early in the design process, one team member’s letter blocks didn’t work when other team membe