Scratch

Scratch is a graphical programming environment developed by a group at the MIT Media Lab with support from an impressive collection of donors including the National Science Foundation, Microsoft, Intel Foundation, and Google. It runs on Windows, Macintosh, and Linux computers and was written using the Squeak dialect of the Smalltalk programming language. Its graphical nature means that students can temporarily ignore the frustrating and distracting issues of syntax and concentrate on algorithms, information, communication, and computational thinking while still creating visually appealing programs. Scratch is 2D, unlike the 3D Alice and Kodu, but then so is the very popular and useful Flash used on so many web pages. Like Flash, Scratch will run (via a Java applet) on a web page and we will take advantage of that by incorporating student work into their online portfolios and the collection of exhibits shown on this web site.