Scratch Helps Kids Get With the Program

#1

Post by robg » Thu, May 14, 2009, 12:46 PM UTC

Scratch Helps Kids Get With the Program
gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com

Re: Scratch Helps Kids Get With the Program

#2

Post by jasongullickson » Thu, May 14, 2009, 1:10 PM UTC

I turned my daughter on to this at age 4 and within an hour she had figured out loops, variable and collision detection. I'm particularly impressed with the way they modeled loops, which is always a hard thing to explain to new developers.

The only problem we had to do with the amount of screen real estate needed, she had a 12" iBook with a 1024x768 display and it was almost unusably cramped. On modern machines, I'm sure it would be no problem.

The great thing about Squeak is it lets you do some cool stuff first and learn the hard stuff later, once you've built up some momentum without throwing away the principles common to almost all software development platforms.

Re: Scratch Helps Kids Get With the Program

#3

Post by krupap » Thu, May 14, 2009, 2:16 PM UTC

See also Alice, a Java-based collaboration between CMU and Sun Microsystems (http://www.alice.org).

Re: Scratch Helps Kids Get With the Program

#4

Post by danteembermage » Thu, May 14, 2009, 3:15 PM UTC

There are some grown-ups who play with scratch too; on the project page they have a numerical procedure for speeding up the built in functions like square root and sin to implement collisions off round objects.

Re: Scratch Helps Kids Get With the Program

#5

Post by andresmh » Thu, May 14, 2009, 5:16 PM UTC

I'm part of the Scratch Team and it's great to see our project here on HN! I've been leading the development of the web site and I'd be curious if there are any HN volunteers who might be interested in contributing their expertise in this effort. We're particularly interested in people with experience in scaling up web applications or Linux experts that could help us iron out some of the issues we have with Scratch on that platform (Ubuntu specifically).

Re: Scratch Helps Kids Get With the Program

#6

Post by utefan001 » Thu, May 14, 2009, 5:49 PM UTC

andresmh wrote: post #5

I'm part of the Scratch Team and it's great to see our project here on HN! I've been leading the development of the web site and I'd be curious if there are any HN volunteers who might be interested in contributing their expertise in this effort. We're particularly interested in people with experience in scaling up web applications or Linux experts that could help us iron out some of the issues we have with Scratch o…

andresmh, I don't see any contact info when I click on your username. Can you put your email address there?

Re: Scratch Helps Kids Get With the Program

#7

Post by andresmh » Thu, May 14, 2009, 5:56 PM UTC

utefan001 wrote: post #6

andresmh wrote: post #5

I'm part of the Scratch Team and it's great to see our project here on HN! I've been leading the development of the web site and I'd be curious if there are any HN volunteers who might be interested in contributing their expertise in this effort. We're particularly interested in people with experience in scaling up web applications or Linux experts that could help us iron out some of the issues we have with Scratch o…

andresmh, I don't see any contact info when I click on your username. Can you put your email address there?

all set :)

Re: Scratch Helps Kids Get With the Program

#8

Post by andresmh » Thu, May 14, 2009, 5:58 PM UTC

jasongullickson wrote: post #2

I turned my daughter on to this at age 4 and within an hour she had figured out loops, variable and collision detection. I'm particularly impressed with the way they modeled loops, which is always a hard thing to explain to new developers. The only problem we had to do with the amount of screen real estate needed, she had a 12" iBook with a 1024x768 display and it was almost unusably cramped. On modern machines, I'm…

Version 1.4 will be able to fit better in smaller screens, such as netbooks or older computers.

Re: Scratch Helps Kids Get With the Program

#9

Post by andresmh » Thu, May 14, 2009, 6:00 PM UTC

danteembermage wrote: post #4

There are some grown-ups who play with scratch too; on the project page they have a numerical procedure for speeding up the built in functions like square root and sin to implement collisions off round objects.

You're right, there's a good number of adults. Check out the age distribution chart at http://blog.scratch.mit.edu/2009/01/now-blogging.html

Re: Scratch Helps Kids Get With the Program

#10

Post by jasongullickson » Thu, May 14, 2009, 6:16 PM UTC

andresmh wrote: post #8

jasongullickson wrote: post #2

I turned my daughter on to this at age 4 and within an hour she had figured out loops, variable and collision detection. I'm particularly impressed with the way they modeled loops, which is always a hard thing to explain to new developers. The only problem we had to do with the amount of screen real estate needed, she had a 12" iBook with a 1024x768 display and it was almost unusably cramped. On modern machines, I'm…

Version 1.4 will be able to fit better in smaller screens, such as netbooks or older computers.

That is great news. I considered getting her an OLPC to replace the Mac but this particular limitation made me pause.