Scratch
pamelamyers | September 13, 2016
Mark has been wanting to teach Sam about computers since she seems so fascinated by them (as all kids do). It’s one thing to play on one, but to know how to make a computer work, now that is a skill. So, using something called Scratch, he started showing her a bit about programming. What is Scratch? Yeah, I had no idea either. Basically, it is a visual programming language developed by MIT Media Lab’s Lifelong Kindergarten group to help students aged 8-16 learn about programming. You can create animations, games, interactive stories, etc. on the computer. It is a stepping stone to more advanced computer programming.
Unsurprisingly, Sam loved it! Here they are working happily away. We are hopeful that by using things like Scratch sometimes instead of just playing mindless games, it will give her a leg up educationally. And she has fun. That is important too, obviously. A little STEM work disguised as fun is a good thing. 🙂
A few days later, my mom brought over her old computer so that we could take the hard drive out before discarding the shell. Mark thought it would be a good learning experience. Sam was thrilled to learn about motherboards, a CPU, a heat sync and the power supply. She actually had quite a few of the parts down pat by the time they were done!
