I’ve discussed the potential value of learning some scripting for any major in the past, and President Obama recently called for more of a focus on making sure students know “how to actually produce stuff” with computers, citing game design as a potential motivation. I’ve been participating in the Learning Creative Learning MOOC from MIT Media Lab, and this week we’ve been working with Scratch. Scratch is certainly a powerful entry point for the type of learning Obama called for. Playing with Scratch reminded me how powerful it is for a language that uses building block code, and made me reconsider it for introducing fundamental programming to some of my non-coders in the classroom. Scratch is a powerful way to support goals like Brian’s of teaching kids to make–but it’s for more than just kids. I grew up with Logo, a highly visual tool where writing simple code “commanded” a turtle to create things on-screen, and I’m amazed by how far we’ve come since then. Scratch provides a platform for anyone to try making animations, interactive experiments, and games. Unlike the tools I’ve looked at so far in this series — Inform 7, Inklewriter, and Twine –Scratch is highly visual and intended to provide a clear introduction to code.
via Making Games in the Classroom with Scratch – ProfHacker – The Chronicle of Higher Education.