[News] Popularity on the rise: Coding (and Consulting) Kid-Style With Scratch

[Klaus D. Witzel]

See below, especially "... elective program classes have used Scratch to  
deliver consulting and programming services for students at another  
school." and "They made products that are real pieces of software, adapted  
to the needs of real clients." :)

/Klaus

<quoted from ACM's TechNews>
"Coding (and Consulting) Kid-Style With Scratch"
T.H.E. Journal (12/07); Schaffhauser, Dian

MIT Media Lab's Lifelong Kindergarten research group has developed  
Scratch, a programming language designed to help kids learn mathematical  
and computational concepts along with the process of design. A paper about  
Scratch explains that the language can nurture skills in the areas of  
information and communication, thinking and problem-solving, and  
interpersonal and self-direction. The Scratch Web site freely offers the  
program for download, examples, tutorials, and discussion forums, and  
approximately 45,000 people have registered on the site thus far.  
Programming via Scratch allows kids to blend together sounds, music,  
graphics, and photos by dragging and dropping graphical command blocks  
onto a Scripts work area. The program begins with a "sprite" character  
that users can manipulate with command blocks, and starting and stopping  
scripts involves the user clicking a green flag and a red stop sign  
button, respectively. Students in Expo Elementary School teacher Karen  
Randall's elective program classes have used Scratch to deliver consulting  
and programming services for students at another school. Randall says the  
language helped her team experience the process of design in a deeper and  
more meaningful way. "They made products that are real pieces of software,  
adapted to the needs of real clients," she says.

http://www.thejournal.com/articles/21743

</quote>