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Scratch is a big deal

bryanbraun.com

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Re: Scratch is a big deal

#261

Post by nicoburns »

pronlover723 wrote: post #200
nicoburns wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re willing to pay then give gamemaker studio a go. It has a similar logic block based model (you can also progress into a full ECMAscript based language once you get more advanced), but is a lot more flexible about what you can display. Not 100% sure it’s still beginner friendly as I used it over a decade ago, but I’m pretty sure there’s a free trial, so you could find out.

> a full ECMAscript based language Wat? Really. I thought it just has GML which is one of the shittiest languages I've ever used. It's really and seriously crap. On par with trying to write real programs in sh.

GML is an ECMAscript dialect. It’s not the best, buts it’s a lot more powerful than dragging boxes around, and IMO a step above bash too.

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#262

Post by jms429 »

urthor wrote: post #69
jms429 wrote: post #55

As a former computing teacher, I loved Scratch. I remember reading about it on a Thursday evening on Slashdot, maybe spring of '08, or 09. I had a free lesson first thing the next day, so I installed it on the network then had a class of 10 year olds give it a whirl. Had a full scheme of work written by the Monday, and was demoing it to other schools by the summer. Loved it, loved the scratch board addon hardware, lo…

If I may ask: Why former?

Burn out. Teaching is a job that is never "done", and expectations from management and parents are constantly set higher and higher. Especially around IT. I lost count of the number of times I asked for help from management and got told "but you are so good at computers".

Tried the startup thing, my product crashed and burned, work for a charity now.

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#263

Post by andrepd »

glenngillen wrote: post #214
kazinator wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My 7yo was making a number guessing game, and to display a two-digit number we had to make two sprites that had 10 "costumes" (0-9) then do modular math to select the costume for each digit So if your kid is cool with this kind of clever workaround for the limitations of some piece of crap, you have a future software engineer.

Exactly! I think the value of these programming environments is in helping you find new ways to think about problems. Having constraints/limitations can be one way to force that creative rethinking to happen sooner rather than later. Obviously you need to find a good balance though as causing frustration and helplessness would have the opposite effect. I’ve an anecdote of my own that I still think about semi-regularl…

Seriously, I remember programming in constrained environments, for example in a calculator, and how that seemed to boost my creativity. I wonder if something is not lost (in terms of learning) by having such hugely powerful systems with any non-trivial functionality a simple library download away.

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#265

Post by HorizonXP »

koverda wrote: post #14
HorizonXP wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you share some here? I’m about to get my 3 year old into Scratch, since it’s already on his RPi. I remember doing the exact same thing in grade school with Gorillas and QBASIC. I actually want to download it now and play it again.

Can he read yet?

Yes

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#266

Post by HorizonXP »

hansoolo wrote: post #162
HorizonXP wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you share some here? I’m about to get my 3 year old into Scratch, since it’s already on his RPi. I remember doing the exact same thing in grade school with Gorillas and QBASIC. I actually want to download it now and play it again.

3 year old? Why?

He’s pretty advanced for his age, so just want to expose him to all things, let him decide what he likes.

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#267

Post by joshfreedman »

Scratch is awesome! I used it in high school for some small, silly games. It was fun :)

As for "next steps" from Scratch: I think micro:bit [0] can fill that gap. Several of my coworkers were part of an event that used it to teach a group of middle-schoolers about programming. It uses block-based programming (supporting even Scratch I think?) and lets you move to and from a text-based language (Python and JS IIRC). I'm not sure if micro:bit has the same social component that the Scratch site does, but it seems like it could at least kids "hey, this is what my code looks like in Python!" Then, they may go and download Python and start hacking away on that.

0: https://www.microbit.org/

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#268

Post by nephanth »

zozbot234 wrote: post #50
jonplackett wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

QBASIC was also my intro to programming. I think in a way it’s a shame that kids now first see visuals rather than code. There’s something much more thrilling about seeing a bunch of written instructions become a game, than some sprites that already look a lot like the game start moving about. Another awesome QBASIC feature - the help section taught you everything you ever needed to know to learn every feature.

I assume that Scratch is more accessible to very young kids, who may have trouble with the ergonomics of correctly inputing text. Also, the whole "drag and drop" workflow can potentially be better suited to modern touch-based devices.

There's also the fact that –let's face it– code is intimidating. Having a ui

- that looks more like what children are used to in everyday UI

- that is *localized*: in general programming languages are centered on English. Most young children in the world don't speak a word of English (beside "hello, what's your name?" If they had the luck to get English classes in grade school)

Lowers the entry barrier by a lot

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#269

Post by mynameisvlad »

AzzieElbab wrote: post #124
easrng wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also if you get Scratch Addons ( https://scratchaddons.com/ ) and enable the Debugger addon it adds a console and blocks to log to it.

Something as simple as this should not require add-ons. This isnt js and `leftPad` you know

Why would kids need a full debugger with console? That's far from "simple".

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#270

Post by mynameisvlad »

spankalee wrote: post #34
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you try using the "Say" blocks? I know they don't look quite as nice, but this is what I use when I'm building something "text based".

We ended up redesigning the app to be better for "say" and "prompts", but our original design just had a couple of big number displays on the screen and a button - something he literally drew out first on paper. We had to basically fail at that before making it more text based.

Why wouldn't you lead with this? Even the limitations you called out seemed to be fairly easily worked around.
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