Students using Scratch, a new programming language developed by Mitchel Resnick and his colleagues at the MIT Media Lab, with support from the National Science Foundation. Scratch is focused on getting young people excited about computer science. The core audience of Scratch is children ages eight to 16, but it has something for everyone. In Scratch, coding is done with graphical blocks, not with syntax and those semicolons. A student writes code by snapping together blocks, much like LEGO bricks or pieces of a puzzle. Additionally, the blocks are designed to fit only in ways that make syntactic sense. This eliminates the dreaded syntax errors that often frustrate and discourage young computer programmers. To create a program, students drag-and-drop the blocks to create procedures.

Credit: Grace Chui

Compared to traditional computer programming, Scratch is an easy language to learn and is readily shared with other programmers. Since its launch, there have been almost 800,000 projects uploaded to the Scratch website. Although the number of users and Scratch projects are impressive, the researchers have been most excited about the diversity of projects and the level of sharing and collaboration that exists within the Scratch community. The social aspect of the Scratch community is an important piece in attracting young people to computer programming. The online community has created expert Scratch programmers whose projects are followed by the rest of the community.

Credit: Grace Chui