Report from the Scratch@MIT Conference: Empowering Everyone With Technology and Media
by Kim Pearson

This weekend, I attended a dynamic conference at MIT for developers, educators and users working with the Scratch programming language. Scratch allows novices to program using graphical blocks that snap together to create interactive stories, games and animations. I decided to write my blogpost in Scratch. Click on the image below to watch it, then hurry on back!

Scratch Project

These videos from MIT offer more details on how programming in Scratch works:




Here is what some other bloggers had to say about the conference. JoNelle Garder wrote:

This past year we used the software in my fifth grade elementary technology classes. Also, students formed a club to continue to learn more ways to program using Scratch. I did not realize how important Scratch has become and what a huge impact Scratch has had world wide until this conference.

SLConceptual is impressed that there is a version of Scratch for Second Life. Aaron says the conference ended months of anticipation.

My own teaching experience with Scratch suggests that it is a great way to demystify programming and attract kids who might not be willing to try computer science under other circumstances.

Submitted by Kim Pearson (view blog) on Sun, 07/27/2008 - 21:44

Comments

 

What fun

Oh, this is fun stuff. I can't wait to download it and start my grandkids playing with it. My grandkids are already producing video for You Tube. I can just imagine all the Scratch projects that are going to show up there.

Virginia DeBolt
BlogHer Technology Contributing Editor
Web Teacher
First 50 Words

Submitted by Virginia DeBolt on Mon, 07/28/2008 - 04:51
 

Scratch on!

That's what people say in the Scratch community ;-) . Let us know how your grandkids like it. The core age group of scratchers is between 8 and 18, but it's growing among our college students as well. You'll see projects by people of all ages. (Check out BatZerk and Iron_Man, for example. I also used it in teaching this summer and plan to create more interactive lessons for the fall.

 

Kim
BlogHer Contributing Editor|Professor Kim|

Submitted by Kim Pearson on Mon, 07/28/2008 - 05:11
 

Cool!

This is great!  I wish that I could introduce this to my daughter, but I believe that she is outside of the core age group (5).  I will certainly forward this to a few college students.   This is really interesting stuff ... much cooler than LISP, Pascal and Assembler Language.

 

-Kishau

 

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Submitted by kishau on Tue, 07/29/2008 - 22:33
 

Let her go at her own pace

According to MIT, the core age group of Scratch users is 8-16, but that doesn't mean you can't introduce it now. Perhaps you can play with it with her. Because you can alter a sprite's behavior in real time, it should be easy for her to understand when you change a few blocks and make the Scratch cat do silly things. Let us know how it works out! 

Kim
BlogHer Contributing Editor|Professor Kim|

Submitted by Kim Pearson on Wed, 07/30/2008 - 02:48
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