Scratch Helps Kids Get With the Program

http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/scratch-helps-kids-get-with-the-program/

by robg • 17 years ago

37 11 17 years ago

gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com

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.

andresmh4• 17 years ago

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

jasongullickson2• 17 years ago

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

Radix• 17 years ago

I'm particularly impressed with the way they modeled loops, which is always a hard thing to explain to new developers.

I remember trying to learn Perl from one of the O'Reily books when I was 11 or 12. I was following the examples and generally enjoying myself until I came to one with a while loop. I was ticked off that it was looping automatically and I couldn't see why. I was expecting that I needed to say when to go back to the beginning of the block. ...maybe c would have been better then.

krupap• 17 years ago

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

danteembermage• 17 years ago

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.

andresmh4• 17 years ago

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

andresmh4• 17 years ago

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).

utefan001• 17 years ago

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

andresmh4• 17 years ago

all set :)

spoondan• 17 years ago

If I had to pick just one thing that Scratch gets right that other programming languages should strive for, it would be the immediacy with which a beginning programmer can get compelling results through trying things. I've seen many would-be programmers lose interest because the process to get a desired result is too abstract and prolonged; the inertia is too great. The ability to get results quickly reinforces further exploration of the system. Novices can build up to an understanding of data structures, algorithms, and how to structure code.

Scratch Helps Kids Get With the Program

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