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In effect, BlueSaturn was setting up a consulting service. In the Project Notes, she encouraged other members of the community to make use of her characters in their own projects – and she offered to make custom characters upon request.
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So she developed a project that featured a series of different animated characters: dinosaurs, dragons, flying horses. Each reindeer was holding a musical instrument and, when clicked, played a different part of the song “We wish you a merry Christmas.” BlueSaturn sent her friends a link to the project as holiday greeting.Īs she worked on the Christmas card, BlueSaturn realized that what she enjoyed most was creating animated characters. When BlueSaturn started using Scratch, one of her first projects was a Christmas card with cartoon images of Santa and his reindeer. Take a look at the Scratch website and you’ll find animated stories, virtual tours, science simulations, public-service announcements, multimedia art projects, dress-up games, paint editors, and even interactive tutorials and newsletters.Īs an example, let me describe some of the projects created by a young Scratcher who I’ll call BlueSaturn. We’ve been amazed with the diversity and creativity of the projects.
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Scratch is used in many contexts (homes, schools, libraries, community centers), at many age levels (from elementary school to college), and across many disciplines (math, computer science, language arts, social studies). Since then, young people (ages 8 and up) have shared more than 3 million projects on the Scratch website, with thousands of new projects added every day. Six years ago, my research group at the MIT Media Lab launched the Scratch programming language and online community in an effort to make coding accessible and appealing to everyone. These skills useful not just for computer scientists but for everyone, regardless of age, background, interests, or occupation. In addition to learning mathematical and computational ideas (such as variables and conditionals), they are also learning strategies for solving problems, designing projects, and communicating ideas. They are not just learning to code, they are coding to learn. In the process of learning to code, people learn many other things.
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It is easy to understand why: the number of jobs for programmers and computer scientists is growing rapidly, with demand far outpacing supply.īut I see much deeper and broader reasons for learning to code. The recent surge of interest in learning to code, reflected in sites like and, has focused especially on job and career opportunities. And, as with traditional writing, there are powerful reasons for everyone to learn to code.
#The best way to learn how to write computer code code
The ability to code allows you to “write” new types of things – interactive stories, games, animations, and simulations. I see coding (computer programming) as an extension of writing. Clearly, there are powerful reasons for everyone to learn to write. As people write, they learn to organize, refine, and reflect on their ideas. The act of writing also engages people in new ways of thinking. People use writing in all parts of their lives: to send birthday messages to friends, to jot down shopping lists, to record personal feelings in diaries.
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Is it important for all children to learn how to write? After all, very few children grow up to become journalists, novelists, or professional writers.
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