Sherisse Richards: Turning Programming into Community Storytelling

In this episode of the Root & STEM podcast, Pinnguaq’s digital skills educator, Sherisse Richards, shares how Scratch–a programming language–can help educators teach students about coding, storytelling, and animation. She explains what Scratch is, how it can be used, and why it’s gained global popularity (00:49). She dives into Scratch’s core uses beyond programming education, including digital literacy, language, and logical reasoning (03:00). Sherisse highlights the support and resources offered for Scratch users to ensure a barrier-free learning experience, including ways Scratch can be utilized for those without consistent access to internet or technological devices (06:30). She also shares her own experiences delivering STEAM workshops to different communities (07:45). Finally, Sherisse shares some digital resources created for Scratch educators by Pinnguaq, including the Inuktitut Digital Literacy Game Engine and a Teacher’s Guide (11:04), before imparting some advice for first-time Scratch users (15:33).