Scratch Conference 2024: Create Your Own Adventure!

Scratch Conference 2024: Create Your Own Adventure! (A Virtual Event)

Wednesday, July 24, 2024, from 8:00 am to 12:30 pm EDT | VIRTUAL | Free!

Scratch Conference is designed for adult participation only. You must be 18 years of age or older to register for this event.
Once you are registered:
- Your email invitation will display the event in your time zone.
- You will have access to the full schedule and details when you log into the event.
- Registration closes Wednesday, July 23rd at 3:00pm ET. This is subject to change.

Scratch is a free creative coding platform used by thousands of K-12 educators around the world across all content areas. Developed by MIT, Scratch is the world’s largest coding community for children and uses a block-based interface that allows young people to create digital stories, games, and animations.

Scratch Conference 2024 (a virtual event) invites you to participate in a day of imagining, creating, and sharing with educators from around the world. This year, we’re looking forward to live sessions by CSforALL, Makey Makey, the DevTech Research Group (ScratchJr), the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at MIT, and many other organizations and educators. Scroll down to “Highlighted Sessions” to learn more about just a few of the many panels, workshops, and Ignite Talks you can expect from the event.

We encourage you to use the interactive platform tools to share ideas, examples, and projects highlighting how you and your learners have been using Scratch and ScratchJr to create, connect, and learn. This year's “Spotlight Sessions" will provide a wide range of creative coding initiatives, ideas, and inspiration from around the world!

The 2024 Scratch Conference is free for all attendees. As a nonprofit, the Scratch Foundation relies on charitable contributions to make global events like the Scratch Conference free and accessible to all. We hope you will consider donating to Scratch when you register — your support at any amount makes a difference.

Registration Notes:

The Scratch Conference is designed for adult participation only. You must be 18 years of age or older to attend the event.
Scratch Conference 2024 is a live, virtual event. The Conference will be held on the interactive RingCentral platform. Event access will be provided to you upon registration.
Before you register, please review the Scratch Community Guidelines to help us create an inclusive and respectful virtual experience for all.
If you are registering a group, it is possible to sign up up to 10 participants at once via the registration form.
Please contact conference@scratch.org with any questions.

New for 2024: Collaborative Creation Sessions
Virtual | Regional | Interactive

Optional sessions to connect and
share ideas within your local region!

When: Thursday, July 25th, 2-hour sessions based on local time zones.

What: Facilitated by Scratch Ecosystem Leaders located in six geographical regions around the world, Collaborative Creation Sessions will be highly interactive, virtual sessions invite conference attendees to share ideas, resources, and best practices based on their unique local communities.

Sessions will be held in the virtual, interactive, RingCentral Platform. Access to your chosen session will be available to you the day of the event under the Schedule > July 25th tab.

Sessions will be highly participatory and include opportunities for collaborative ideation with the goal of deepening regional networks of individuals and organizations committed to broadening access and opportunities for creative learning. The Ecosystem Leaders listed below will facilitate these lively and thought-provoking 2-hour sessions with support from the Scratch Foundation team.

Who: Taking place the day following the Scratch Conference, Collaborative Creation Sessions are an optional opportunity for conference attendees. Should you choose a session, please be sure that it is either located in or adjacent to your local region. Please note that attendees will be expected as active, on-camera participants in the breakout room discussions. Sessions will be facilitated in the languages noted in the table below.

How: The Scratch Conference registration form includes the option to register for one of the following Collaborative Creation Sessions. Please choose a session only if you anticipate joining. Spots are limited and we would like to ensure active participation.

Session Facilitator	Location	Region	Local Date & Time	Language
Barefoot Computing	London, UK	Northwestern Europe	July 25, 6-8pm BST	English
STEM Impact Center Kenya	Nairobi, Kenya	Eastern Africa	July 25, 4-6pm EAT	English
Quest Alliance	Bangalore, India	South Asia	July 25, 4-6pm IST	English
Brazilian Creative Learning Network	Sao Paulo, Brazil	South America	July 25, 7:15-9:15pm BRT	Brazilian Portuguese
STEAM for Vietnam	Hanoi, Vietnam	Southeast Asia	July 25, 7-9pm GMT+7	Vietnamese
Learn Quebec and Maine Mathematics & Science Alliance (MMSA)	Quebec, Canada and Maine, USA	North America	July 25, 3-5pm ET	English

Collaborative Creation Session Questions & Answers

What if my region is not represented in the Collaborative Creation Session options?
We hope attendees can find a Collaborative Creation Session that is either in or adjacent to their local region. If your region is not listed, please take advantage of the full Scratch Conference experience on Wednesday, July 24th, which will represent educators and organizations from over 16 countries from around the world!

What language will each session be facilitated in?
Sessions will be facilitated in the languages noted in the table above. All sessions will include a live speech-to-text translation app. For the best experience, however, we recommend attending a session that will be facilitated in a language you are familiar with.

What do you mean by “located in or adjacent to my local region”?
Collaborative Creation Sessions are designed as highly localized experiences that gather, connect, and expand collaboration between regional members. You could consider a local region one that shares geographic, cultural, educational, or linguistic commonalities. For example, an attendee located in Ireland may want to attend the Barefoot Computing session. Attendees should choose a session that is most aligned with their regional interests.

Can I attend more than one session?
Collaborative Creation Sessions are designed as highly localized experiences that gather, connect, and expand the collaboration of regional communities. Therefore, attendees may choose just one session that is in or adjacent to their local region.

Will Collaborative Creation Sessions be recorded?
Due to their unique interactive nature, these sessions will not be recorded for playback following the conference.

Accessibility & Language Translation

The Scratch Conference 2024 will be held virtually on the RingCentral platform. This year’s event will maximize RingCentral's accessibility features, some of which are highlighted below. We will also be reviewing individual speaker and attendee access and accommodation requests as they are received.

Language Translation:

Attendees will have access to “Wordly,” an integrated translation app, for all sessions. Wordly provides live speech-to-text translation in over 80 languages.

Closed Captioning and ASL:

Closed Captioning will be available for all sessions, breakouts, posters, and networking.
American Sign Language (ASL) will be provided for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, as well as one strand of workshops and panels.
For more information about using Closed Captions on RingCentral, please visit this link.

Thank you to CSTA and University of Washington DO-IT for allowing us to remix and share their accessibility resources with the Scratch Conference audiences.

Conference Agenda, July 24
(all times EDT)

8:00-8:30 am | Opening Ceremony

8:30-8:35 am | Stretch/Coffee/Tea Break

8:35-9:35 am | Concurrent Sessions: Panels, Workshops, Ignite Talks

9:35-9:50 am | “Meet the Scratch Team!”

9:50-10:50 am | Concurrent Sessions: Panels, Workshops, Ignite Talks

10:50-11:10 am | Attendee “Nano Networking”

11:10 am -12:10 pm | Concurrent Sessions: Panels, Workshops

12:10-12:15 pm | Stretch/Coffee/Tea Break

12:15-12:30 pm | Closing Ceremony

Highlighted Sessions

Scratch in a War Zone: Teaching Coding to Refugees

Dust Astronauts

Our team will share experiences teaching Scratch to young Syrian refugees living in the Za'atari refugee camp in Jordan - a 15 minutes drive from a war zone. We will uncover challenging conditions accessing the camp, technical issues, and hurdles facing our students. Learn how we were able to transform the lives of these students with basic hardware and Scratch.

Unlocking Students' Potential: Creative Computing in Rural India

Leadership for Equity

Dive into our journey of democratizing computer science education in government schools of rural India. Our team will share innovative approaches and success stories from rural communities showcasing how access to computer science education can transform students' aspirations and reshape community perceptions.

Designing with Scratch Across the Disciplines for Pre-Service Teachers

New York Hall of Science

Explore how Scratch be used as a creative literacy space for translanguaging and computational storytelling: from a teacher education classroom to a local first-grade classroom. These innovative educators will introduce artifacts of computational storytelling via Scratch as well as their fieldwork with first graders in composing Scratch stories.

AI Ethics and Creative Learning: Possibilities & Pitfalls

Scratch Foundation

Generative AI brings both exciting new possibilities and new ethical challenges. This panel assembles researchers and practitioners to share their perspectives on questions including: How can we use AI to bring new creative learning experiences to children? How might we navigate concerns around equity, bias, privacy, safety, and beyond? What can we envision and hope for in the future? Presenters will share actionable resources to take back to the classroom.

Creative Coding Rubric for Early Childhood

DevTech Research Group

Explore a brand new, validated assessment tool for creative coding in early childhood: a rubric designed to evaluate ScratchJr projects. Participants will gain foundational knowledge of how, why, and when to use the Creative Coding rubric, and have an opportunity to work together to create and adapt their own projects and project rubrics.

Makey Makey + Scratch in the ELA Classroom

Makey Makey

In this lively workshop, participants will follow along to learn about three different English Language Arts (ELA) projects that combine Makey Makey & Scratch projects. Participants will then be challenged to see the world as their construction kit and discuss ways they can take this concept further in their own classroom.

The Wordsmith: Bridging Spoken Language and Coding

Panchatantra Programming

Join us to explore how Scratch can be used as a powerful tool to teach languages through creative coding. By engaging with the "The Wordsmith” project, children not only learn new words but also develop their language skills in a playful and engaging way. Participants will have access to a toolkit of engaging language learning activities that they can use in their classrooms.

Full Conference Schedule

Scratch Conference Sponsor:

Media Release Note

As an attendee and/or presenter at Scratch Conference, I hereby grant the Scratch Foundation the right to:

Record my image on video, audio, film, photograph, or any other medium.

Use my image and likeness for any lawful purpose related to Scratch and hereby release the Scratch Foundation from any liability of any kind, including, but not limited to, royalties to me or the student, and our respective heirs, assigns, executors, and personal administrators, arising from or in any way connected to the Scratch Foundation’s use.

Reproduce, distribute, publicly display and/or publicly perform, either electronically or by any other medium, and to allow others to do the same, the recordings and/or copies of the materials listed above, in whole or in part and without restrictions or limitations, for educational and related non-profit purposes.