Key Press

What’s inside?

For the teacher

Prompt overview

Activities overview

Teaching the module

For the student

Design journal cover page

Foundational activities

Additional activities

What is this?

Key Press is one of 10 modules in Getting Unstuck, a Scratch curriculum developed by the Creative Computing Lab. The aim of the curriculum is to foster classroom cultures that support creative and conceptual fluency with code.

Find more modules and the orientation to Getting Unstuck at gettingunstuck.gse.harvard.edu

Prompt Overview

Create a project where a user can control a sprite using the keyboard.

Whenever the user presses the up, down, left, or right arrow keys, the sprite moves in a certain direction.

What concept will we explore in this module?

In this module, students explore keyboard interactivity through both sensing and events.

What can students make with keyboard interactivity?

Controlling sprites via the keyboard can be useful for making games and interactive narratives. Key presses can allow users to program many types of actions!

For example, students might program their projects so that users can press keys to control sprites’ positions, colors, sizes, costumes, sounds, or other attributes.

The user can press the d key to switch the sprite’s costume.

What else should I know about keyboard interactivity?

There are many different interactive events that can be programmed using a keyboard! Since there are so many keys on a standard keyboard, you can encourage students to try out many different visual and sound effects.

This module can also be an opportunity for students to consider the difference between event-based interactivity (e.g., using an event block such as when key pressed) and sensing-based interactivity (e.g., sensing for key presses by using a key pressed? block).

Additional resources

• Use Arrow Keys: In the Scratch editor, click on Tutorials, then click on the Use Arrow Keys Scratch tutorial to explore how to move a sprite
• Chase or Pong Games: Explore the Make a Chase Game (pp. 21–28) or Pong Game (pp. 29–32) educator guides to familiarize yourself with different projects students might want to make
• Getting Unstuck 2020 Studio: Explore additional Key Press projects made by teachers

The activities in this module are designed to help students create Scratch projects that are unique and matter to them, while exploring a particular computer science concept. This work is supported through the essential design studio practices of exploring, creating, sharing, and reflecting.

The Key Press module includes 18 activities. We recommend using the 6 activities below as the foundation for the learning experience and incorporating additional activities as desired. Based on teachers’ classroom use of the activities, we expect that this module will span five 45-minute sessions.

Activities Overview

Along with the 6 foundational activities, we encourage you to include some of the 12 additional activities listed on the next page. These activities are intended to offer other ways of supporting your students’ (and your own!) creative and conceptual fluency. We hope that you remix and reimagine these activities, as well as include activities you are excited about from other sources—whatever works best for you and your students!

We have also created how-to Scratch logistics pages that may be helpful for students as they work through the module, including: how to share a project to a studio, how to fill in a Scratch project page, how to give credit, and how to give feedback.

These activity pages are designed to be shared with students—to guide their work and to help them keep track of their learning. We call a student’s collection of activity pages their design journal. To help organize the activity pages in students’ design journals, we have included a cover page. This cover page offers an overview of the project prompt through text and video, as well as a list of key activities for quick reference. You will need to update the cover page to reflect the activities you choose to include.

How will you bring the Key Press module to life in your classroom? Here we offer some planning prompts and reflection questions to help you get ready to explore, create, share, and reflect with your students!

Teaching the Module

• Choose activities (from the foundational and additional activities summarized in the adjacent table, or from other sources) that you’ll use to teach this module.
• Create a Scratch studio for students to share projects.
• Set up students’ design journals by customizing the cover page and including relevant activities.
• Create your own Key Press Scratch project to help familiarize yourself with the prompt.
• Make plans for differentiation in order to support all of your students and their unique needs.
• Identify any specific computer science standards or cross-curricular connections you would like to make.
• Connect with other Getting Unstuck educators on Twitter or on Facebook.

Session 3

Session 4

Session 5

Session 1

Session 2

We’ve included this page to help you map out your chosen activities across different sessions and to document your thoughts about how sessions went. You may have more sessions; you may have fewer sessions—just add or remove rows as needed.

Create a project where a user can control a sprite �using the keyboard.

Click on the video �to learn more about this project!

What do you want to do?

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• Explore the inspiration studio
• Create my project
• Try a strategy to get unstuck
• Share with a heart and star
• Reflect in my journal entries
• Self-assess my process

3. Open that project and click
4. Find a when key pressed block or a key pressed block.

Why is this project interesting to you?

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Exploring projects that other Scratchers have made can help us get inspired about what we want to make!

1. Click on this link: scratch.mit.edu/studios/27320996
2. Visit a few of the projects in the Key Press studio.�Choose a project that you think is interesting.

What key does the user press? What happens?

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Explore

Blocks to explore

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Create a project where a user can control�a sprite using the keyboard.

Create

Create

Search online

See if someone else has an answer! On Scratch, search for [thing you want] + “tutorial.”

For example, you could search for “score tutorial,” or “animation tutorial.”

Be inspired by others

Go to your class studio to see others’ projects. Find a project and click See Inside.

What do you notice? What is something you could try in your own project?

I don’t know how to...

1. I need to...
2. Then I want to...
3. Another thing is...

Break it down

Breaking down a problem into smaller parts can help us figure things out.

Write out the problem. Then, write or draw three smaller parts of the problem.

Which strategies did you try for this project? Which strategies worked for you?

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Getting stuck is part of the process when working on projects! Here are some strategies to help.

1. Show your project to a classmate.

4. Switch!

Share

Sharing your project with classmates can help you get feedback about what to work on next.

Use the boxes below to write or draw your thinking, or share a link to a video or audio reflection.�Try using these sentence starters to help you share your ideas!

Today I learned...

I need help with...

I wonder how I could...

Today I was proud of...

Reflect

Teacher response:

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Reflect

Let’s brainstorm ideas for what project you could make. Start by thinking about what happened yesterday.

What did you do? What did you see or hear? What did you notice?

Explore

Read the code for this Key Press project. What happens in this project?

Explore

In this teacher-facilitated unplugged activity, students will act out certain commands when you say that different keys are being pressed. This activity helps students explore another method for adding interactivity to their projects.

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Preparation

• Print the code excerpts on the next page, then cut along the lines. Each student will receive one quarter of the page.

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Activity

• Give a code excerpt to each student.
• Tell the students that they should only execute code blocks if they hear their key called out.
• Say each of the four keys (“Space! Up arrow! M! V!”), giving time for students to act out their parts.
• Optionally perform a few rounds.

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Discussion

• What happened? Why did some students do things while others did not?
• In Key Press projects, we will make things happen when different keys are pressed in our projects. What are some things that could happen in Scratch projects when the user presses keys?
• What kinds of projects could you make that use key press?

Explore

If you hear that your key has been pressed, execute the instructions!

If you hear that your key has been pressed, execute the instructions!

If you hear that your key has been pressed, execute the instructions!

If you hear that your key has been pressed, execute the instructions!

Write or draw your ideas to share what you’re currently thinking about for your Key Press project!

Create

What happens in your project? Draw the important events and write about them underneath.

Create

Now that you’ve made a storyboard, what are you going to work on next in your Scratch project?

Create

1. Go to the Remixable for Key Press at scratch.mit.edu/projects/541497898
2. Read the instructions and notes.
3. Try out the project! What do you notice?
4. Click to explore the code.
5. Click to create a remix.

What are 3 things you could change in this project to make it your own?

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Find three peers to give you feedback on your project. Read their feedback and decide what to do next.

For peers: Write your name and red, yellow, and green suggestions in the table.

Share

For you: Based on this feedback, one thing I’m going to work on next is…

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Share

Feedback from others can help you decide what to work on next. One way that we can share feedback is by leaving comments on Scratch projects!

1. Log onto Scratch, and find your class studio.
2. Click on a project that you want to explore.
3. After you’ve tried it out, scroll down to the Comments section.
4. Write a constructive comment for the project creator to help them work on their Scratch project.
5. Click the button.
6. Go back to the class studio to view another project. Try to find projects that have no comments to help everyone get feedback!

For the feedback giver

• Share something you like about their project.
• Share something they could try in their project.
• Switch! Show your project and get feedback!

For the project sharer

• Show your project to your classmate.
• Share something you like about your project.
• Share a question you have about your project.

When both of you have shared your projects, find a new partner. Show your project and give feedback to at least three other people!

❤️

Something I like about my project is...

❓

Something I wonder is...

❤️

My favorite part of your project was...

⭐️

Something you could try is...

Share

⭐️

Something I’m excited about...

❓

Could you tell me more about...

Pair: With a partner, take turns sharing your responses to the questions above. After you listen to your partner, ask them one question about their project.

Share: What is one thing you want to share with the whole class?

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Reflect

Think: By yourself, think about the questions below. You can write or draw in the boxes.

My project is about… because...

Today I worked on...

Something new I tried was...

I was inspired by...

Next I want to make...

• Log onto Scratch, and find your project.
• Go to the Notes and Credits section of your project.
• Using the sentence starters below, write 1–2 sentences about what you did today.
• When you’re done, go to your class studio and read what others have written about their projects!

Writing in the Notes and Credits helps others learn about your ideas and how you created your project.

Reflect

Try using these sentence starters to write a comment that explains your thinking.

When you’re done, go to your class studio and read what others have written about their projects!

Writing comments about specific code stacks can help others learn about how your code works.

This code stack resets...

I added this code so that...

I used these blocks to...

This code stack makes...

Reflect

This curriculum has been released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license, which means that you are free to use, change, and share the curriculum, as long as you provide appropriate attribution and give others access to any derivative works.

Getting Unstuck was made possible with support from the National Science Foundation through grant #1908110. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.