Fall 2023 was my first semester as a graduate student in the College of Education! Although I’ve been at Lehigh for almost three years, on staff at Lehigh University Art Galleries, I am just starting in the graduate program majoring in Instructional Technology.
My first course was TLT 458 | Intro to Multimedia Learning and Technology with Professor Juan Zheng. The class covered a wide variety of lessons from teaching methodology to new softwares and technologies. My favorite part of the course were the projects assigned for hands-on exploration. Featured below is an educational game that was created as part of my coursework. The game was created in a free, online program called Scratch. For this project, I decided to create a game that allows users to explore artwork in the museum collection and decipher what materials were used to create it.
Play the game on Scratch here!
Although the game is quite rudimentary, the process required to create it was very detailed and labor intensive. Even with a learner coding software program, like used to teach in Scratch, there are still many intricacies and mistakes to be made! I created this game with the intention of sharing it as part of the Teaching and Learning page on the Lehigh University Art Galleries website. I thought it could be used as an at-home activity for students of any age; one of many ways they can explore before visiting the museum. I really love the idea of creating a game that incorporates different art works and may consider developing a few additional games with other artworks based on the coding structure I created. All in all, I think Scratch is a great introductory tool for teaching coding and produces really fun and quality results if used correctly.
Elise Schaffer
Coordinator of Museum Experience and Access