Coding for Fun (Youth and Above) with Scratch

Have you always thought that learning to code is a bit on the dull side? That it’s text-based and a solitary activity for adults only?

MIT’s Lifelong Kindergarten Project has slayed that preconception with a drag and drop programming language called Scratch. Scratch was designed for 8 – 16 year olds in mind (but anyone can 'play'); it encourages an interest in coding by emphasizing creativity, collaboration and community by making it pure fun. 

 

The Scratch website offers tutorials, galleries (by category) of peoples' creations and the ability to remix them and re-post.  YouTube offers close to a million short tutorials as well.

Here are three, brief examples of what you can do with Scratch
* "The Scratch Movie" (about a cat buying a sofa at Ikea)
* "4 types of school kids"
* "Interactive Violin"

May the fun begin!