Lero, the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre and the Irish Computer Society have launched a transition year module in software development, utilising a program called Scratch.

Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy for students to create their own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share their creations on the web. It is a fun and interesting way to introduce software development to students.

The materials were developed by teachers for teachers with the support of IT Tallaght and CIO Ireland. The materials are endorsed by the Department of Education and Science, Transition Year Support Service (TYSS) and are being distributed by the Irish Computer Society.

Students will:

• Learn computer programming
• Learn mathematical and computational ideas
• Build their own games, stories, art, music and animation

Teachers will:

• Pick and choose what to teach from a set of 10 modules to suit their needs
• Introduce their class to a free software tool called Scratch, developed by the MIT Media Lab
• Offer new and exciting experience to students

The Scratch competition has been open since 7th September 2009 and will close on Friday 19th March 2010. The competition is open to students in second level schools in the Republic of Ireland. The project must be created using Scratch, which can be downloaded for free at http://scratch.mit.edu.

Entries from a school can only be accepted if the school has been registered by a teacher using the official registration form on www.scratch.ie. The closing date for registration is Friday 15th January 2010.

The project can be about anything – the only limit is students’ imagination. Entries can be from an individual or from a team of not more than 3 students per team. The teams must then upload their entry to a school’s gallery, created by a teacher, on the Scratch website at http://scratch.mit.edu.

Each entry will be reviewed by a panel of judges. Points will be awarded for each of the following:

• Originality
• Creativity
• Technical quality/use of Scratch features
• Overall project quality

The decisions of the judging panel are final and no correspondence will be entered into.

For more information on this project:
Tel: 061 202434
Email info@scratch.ie

Web: www.scratch.ie