We are starting a series of posts for our young readers and their parents. We will be sharing interesting stuff that should be useful for our readers in the age group of 4-14 years. These could be about tools you could learn, competitions you could participate in, information you could benefit from, games you could play, TV shows you could watch, websites you could follow and of course, books you could read. Since what we will be sharing will have one prominent quality – a high interestingness quotient, we are sure others (whom we call enlightened lifelong learner souls) will also enjoy. We will also try to give an Interestingness Quotient rating every time we share something with you.
Scratch – we are starting our series by sharing about Scratch. We were introduced to Scratch by a dear friend last month. Scratch comes from the MIT Media Lab. So it has got excellent credentials to go by. 🙂
From its About Scratch page,
Scratch is a programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art — and share your creations on the web.
We found it to be an excellent tool to get someone started with the basics of programming. We are big believers and proponents of the fact that you take personal responsibility for your learning when you are interested and that’s the only way you can learn something permanently. If you are learning something to pass an exam or because someone is telling you to, you may get the result (read test score) but you wouldn’t have learned enough to master the skill.
Scratch allows you to actually give a form to what you can imagine. We recommend this to every parent and we hope to see lot of the imaginations of our readers being put up on their site. You need to download the Scratch package and get started. You can also get started on the online editor. Our friend who introduced us to Scratch is already using it in the school he runs. We’re sure the kids enjoy it.
If you or someone you know has been using Scratch, please share your experience and projects in the comments section.
Interestingness Quotient : 5/5.
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