That means that the program is shared on the official Scratch website hosted by MIT (only if the student gives permission). Whether it's just a small series of commands, a complex animation, a game, or even a new utility, they can finalize and "publish" their program as long as it's complete. However, there is documentation for the scripting language made for Scratch, and there are plenty of examples of completed projects online.Īfter completing all the tutorials and puzzles, students are free to make whatever programs they wish in Scratch. This part of the software is intentionally difficult, showing students that writing complex scripts and programs can be hard. After all of this, the software then introduces them to the complexity of actual programming languages. Over time, students can create graphical blocks that contain what is essentially pseudo code, resembling "methods" or "functions" (the terminology differs by the language) that would be used if they were engineering an actual program. They can move around and swap these blocks. Initially, this is just a series of commands they learned previously that run in order (just as a basic PHP script would). They're given "story blocks" that run in a linear sequence. Once students have mastered the art of performing basic commands, they can begin "programming" inside this interactive utility. First, students are greeted by an animated figure they can control through "commands," introducing them to the concept of a command line, something crucial in software engineering. It abstracts out the gritty details most programming languages have that can get in the way of learning. Since many students struggle to learn concepts in Computer Science, Scratch is an ideal introduction. Since that was a huge hit, MIT developed a second "Scratch" application for multiple operating systems, including Windows. MIT's original "Scratch" was a web application that allowed students to learn basic software development principles online through hands-on tutorials. MIT Scratch 2 is a utility designed to introduce younger students to software development principles.
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