SPAE: A Scratch Project Analysis Tool For Educators

Middle school and high school educators are always seeking new ways to offer differentiation and personalization of learning to their students. Computer programming can provide a differentiation technique as well as strengthen mathematical and problem solving skills. However, text-based computer programming languages are difficult for younger students to learn. Scratch is a visual, block-based programming environment that targets these younger novice learners. Scratch has been very successful at breaking down this learning barrier, evidenced by the 35 million projects created by 33 million unique users in twelve years. Educators that wish to use Scratch in the classroom now have a new problem in understanding how to evaluate and assess student projects. This thesis describes the Scratch Project Analysis for Educators tool (SPAE). SPAE is an easy to use web application that provides a summary of Scratch project characteristics that teachers can use in evaluating student work. SPAE is implemented on a variety of hardware and software platforms to ensure accessibility to any teacher. The reliability of SPAE was demonstrated through the analysis of nearly one million Scratch projects.