richardsebastian.com

But now there is a new software tool that lets kids easily build their own simple games and animations. The program is called Scratch and is produced by those deeply geeky peeps at MIT Medialab who continue to amaze me by making so many useful, technologically-relevant tools for education. The creators of Scratch are same folks behind Lego Mindstorms, and Lego threw some of its cash behind the development of Scratch as well, which uses the Lego “building-block” metaphor to make creating digital animations and games a…snap.

Primarily aimed at children, Scratch does not require prior knowledge of complex computer languages. Instead, it uses a simple graphical interface that allows programs to be assembled like building blocks. The digital toolkit, developed in the US at MIT’s Media Lab, allows people to blend images, sound and video.

“Computer programming has been traditionally seen as something that is beyond most people - it’s only for a special group with technical expertise and experience,” said Professor Mitchel Resnick, one of the researchers at the Lifelong Kindergarten group at MIT.

“We have developed Scratch as a new type of programming language, which is much more accessible.”

Scratch is free to download and from my limited tinkering around with the program seems exceptionally easy to use. Instead of having to write complex, esoteric computer code to create an animation , all you do is drag pre-programmed, colored blocks onto a stage area. Voila! Easy. As. Pie.

While the building block metaphor seems to have obviously originated from idea of Legos blocks, the creators suggest a less obvious origin:

“Scratch is inspired by the method hip hop DJs use to mix and scratch records to create new sounds.With Scratch, our goal is to allow people to mix together all kinds of media, not just sounds, in creative ways,” said Professor Resnick. “We want people to start from existing materials - grabbing an image, grabbing some sound, maybe even bits of someone else’s program and then extending them and mixing them to make them their own.”

Thanks Grandmaster Flash. How long now before we see the first kindergartner-created first-person shooter animated with a mash-up of Barney, Blue Clues & Teletubbie zombies?