Scratch Revolution Comes To Jordan Led By Arab TV Soap Opera Stars

February 13, 2010

Over 30 kids and adults from disadvantaged communities in Jordan were introduced to the world of animation and programming with the help of animated cutouts of popular Bab El-Haara TV stars and a powerful yet simple educational tool called Scratch developed by the team at MIT Lifelong Kindergarten Group.

So how do you introduce kids and adults to computer animation and programming skills without intimidating them with complex technological terms and concepts? Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab spent years of research and development funded by the government and private sector partners such as Microsoft and Nokia to come up with the answer: They called it Scratch, as in the DJ scratch.

Scratch is a freely-distributed computer software that was designed to mimic playing with LEGO blocks to assemble animation scripts. Kids don't type code, the pile up colored programming instructions on top of one another, using simple mouse drag and drop, to instruct cartoon images,  drawn by the students or imported from camera or web, to do thing such as move, turn, make a sound, change color, interact with other cartoons, write something, etc.

And who were the star characters who captivated these kids during their Scratch-ing experience? Talking cutouts of the famous Abu Sh'haab and Abu Ghaleb from the very popular Arab TV soap opera Bab El-Haara.

"The folks at the MIT Lifelong Kindergarten Group have given us a wonderful gift that will contribute to efforts to shrink the ITT gap while promoting creative self-expression," said Hazim Bitar, founder of the Amman Filmmakers Cooperative and MicroNAS Initiative. "This fits nicely into both our filmmaking and IT efforts. "

An online library of over half a million Scratch projects, hosted by MIT, can be accessed by anyone on the internet to learn from, modify, and to upload projects for free.  Sharing Scratch projects is an integral part of the Scratch experience.

Already educators who participated in the two pilot workshops are making plans to introduce Scratch into their curricula.

The Ghour pilot workshop was held in coordination with the Zikra Initiative. The Jarash Palestinian Refugee Camp pilot workshop was held in coordination with the Community Development Office and UNRWA Jordan - Women Program.

RELATED LINKS

Gaza-Jarash Palestinian refugee camp workshop
http://micronas.wordpress.com/2010/02/10/scratch-gaza-camp-jordan-2010

Ghour village workshop
http://micronas.wordpress.com/2010/02/13/scratch-ghour-safi-village-2010

MIT Scratch
http://Scratch.mit.edu

MicroNAS
http://Micronas.wordpress.com

Amman Filmmakers Cooperative
http://JordanianFilms.com

CONTACT

Hazim Bitar
+962.776.400.343
Hazim.bitar{at}gmail.com