In honor of the Hour of Code (which is officially Dec. 4 – 10), I thought anyone that had an interest could try their hand at creating their own Google Doodle. It’s completely free and if you’d like to save your creation, you’ll just need to create a free Scratch account. This website has video tutorials. Please don’t let this overwhelm you! If you look at the work pad and you’re completely lost, don’t fret! Just go back to the page with the videos and I promise, you’ll be able to do something with your Google logo. Add costumes, make the letters spin, and many other options are available!
If you’re brave (and you don’t have to be that brave), have your students give it a try. The only warning is that currently, elementary students and 6 and 7 grade can’t get outside emails through their Google accounts. In order to sign up for Scratch, they will need to have a working email to verify their address. Grades 8 and above have this option of outside emails! For students younger than this, they may need parent permission****** and I can turn that feature on for them if they choose. However, a SIGNED parent permission would be needed. Otherwise, many of these students already have their own email addresses and can sign up for Scratch with a personal email!
*******Just a quick update if you want to have kids try the Google Doodle and save it to Scratch. I said previously that kids in grades 7 and lower can’t use their Google email for outside emails. This is correct. However, Keeley uses Scratch and has her kids use their Google accounts. Here’s what she has to say:
I don’t have a teacher/class account the kids just sign up on their own and their gwsds.net works for the email. Only problem since they don’t have the email is that if they forget the password they can’t get a recovery email. So, we all use close to the same password with their lunch # being the only difference. That usually worksJ I also don’t have them make a unique username because they never remember it and even when I record it I have kids come back they next year or later wanting to get in and they can’t. So for that we use first or last name (not both) with a set of numbers.
So if you’d like to try this with your younger students, you can still have them create those Scratch accounts! Therefore, I won’t turn on outside emails for those younger kiddos, but be aware if they forget their information, they won’t be able to recover those passwords!