Category — general

I’m going back to Arlington this year to participate in the OLPC Learning Club DC’s Scratch Day event. Not only has my publisher donated some books for raffle, but Mike Lee hints to a really cool prize, “we have a special raffle prize related to robotics!”

Also from the Learning Club’s announcement, Mike Lee says, “We also expect to be able to demonstrate Scratch 1.4 running on the OLPC XO-1 laptop with support for the built-in camera and the Journal file system.”

If you’re in the neighborhood, I’d strongly recommend you stop by the Arlington Career Center. The young scratchers’ talents and capabilities are truly amazing. Click for more details.

I’ve had a series of questions recently from teachers looking to switch their introduction to computer programming classes over to scratch. They, of course, want a textbook and have been asking how to receive an evaluation of Scractch 1.4 Beginner’s Guide.

I think it’s great to see the interest in using Scratch as an introduction language, and I especially like the inquiries about the book. Evaluation copies can be requested direct from Packt Publishing.

Of course, I also make some some sample chapters available. Here’s chapter 7, the fortune teller. It covers lists (aka arrays), mod, and if-else.

The basic introduction to Scratch programming (first half of chapter 2) is here. Here’s the second half of the introduction to Scratch.

Here are some great thoughts by Chris Betcher about why programming benefits everyone, including the kids who aren’t destined to become programmers.

Over the past 20 years I’ve taught quite a lot of programming to children and without fail it’s something they get a real kick out of.  They really seem to engage with the big ideas of programming – problem solving, thinking mathematically and using logic and reasoning. It’s the practical application of those ideas and the creative thinking required to solve authentic problems that forms the basis of a truly engaging learning experience.

While I don’t believe that everyone necessarily needs to become a computer programmer, I do think that everyone would benefit from learning the basic skills and mental gymnastics required to write simple computer programs.  I’ve found it to be an incredibly useful skill, and the underlying understanding it gives into computers and how they do what they do has come in really handy over the years.

Of course, Chris touts Scratch as a great language to show your kids how to write computer programs. Problem solving is a skill that transcends disciplines; you need to be able to think logically whether  you code or raise chickens.