Programming for Everyone: How Scratch is Making Programming More Accessible, Meaningful, and Social

Опубликовано 6 сентября 2016, 18:38

I will discuss ideas, experiences, and opportunities surrounding Scratch ΓÇô our new media-rich programming system designed especially for people who havenΓÇÖt previously imagined themselves as programmers. Since its public launch in 2007, the Scratch website (scratch.mit.edu) has become a vibrant online community, with people sharing, discussing, and remixing one anotherΓÇÖs interactive stories and games. Scratch has been called ΓÇ£the YouTube of interactive media.ΓÇ¥ Each day, Scratchers from around the world upload more than 1000 new projects to the site, with source code and media objects freely available for sharing. The collection of projects is wildly diverse: video games, interactive newsletters, science simulations, virtual tours, birthday cards, animated dance contests, interactive tutorials, and many others, all programmed in ScratchΓÇÖs graphical building-block programming language. The core audience is between the ages of 8 and 16, though there is a sizeable group of adult participants as well. As Scratchers program and share interactive projects, they learn important mathematical and computational concepts, while also learning to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively ΓÇô essential skills for the 21st century.