Scratch from MIT
I used to use Macromedia Flash back when I was a bit more involved in my computer work. I would create scenes and shorts about random subjects with Flash and post them online. It has been a while since I have used programs like this, but Scratch is an interesting tool to help beginners learn to use programming languages and to build problem solving skills through trial and error. It’s a very simple program with lots of commands already built into the easy to use GUI and I find it well organized.
However, for me it was somewhat difficult to figure out what Scratch was intended for. It’s hard to learn a new programming language when it looks nothing like what you have used in the past. I learned in VisualBasic, Java, and HTML, which are all text based commands. The interface of the building blocks that have commands, even though emulating the brackets and divisions of text code, were difficult to get used to.
I would have loved this in my classrooms in high school when learning computer language and logic. I’m just glad that it is a free program, since we have been talking about access to information and tools all semester.
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