Scratch Online is a visual programming platform specially designed for children. It uses block-based visual programming language. With this, users can create projects using a block-like interface. It was developed by MIT, so that creating interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art could get easier. Scratch Online can be downloaded as an app or run from within a modern web browser. Furthermore, you can share your created artwork with anyone. This program is very helpful for children to think keenly and creatively. It also helps them to work systematically and collaboratively, which are essential skills for life in the 21st century. Scratch is a project of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab and it is free of cost.
- Who uses Scratch Online?
- Learn to Code, Code to Learn
- Learning with Scratch
- Exploring with Scratch
- Gaining Ideas with Scratch
- Around the World
- Support and Funding
- Final Thoughts
Who uses Scratch Online?
Anyone can use it, but it is specially made for ages 8 to 16. It is used all over the world for lots of stuff like creating projects in a wide variety of settings, including homes, schools, museums, libraries, and community centers.
Learn to Code, Code to Learn
As our society now, is based on technology. We need to learn more about technology and keep ourselves updated. When learning to code in Scratch, you learn important strategies for solving problems, designing projects, and communicating ideas.
Learning with Scratch
Now people wonder how are children going to develop their minds by just creating mere interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art with Scratch? As the children create their art in this program, their mind works mathematically and blossoms up with computational ideas. Every story they create with this program has a meaningful and motivating context behind it. Children delve deeply into their ideas of creating interactive stuff, which helps them in learning the design process. Creating projects in Scratch also helps students develop a more profound level of fluency with digital technology.
Exploring with Scratch
With Scratch, you can explore hundreds of different videos and artwork, to have a better understanding of how things work. It also helps the children to get inspiration to work with a much more thoughtful mind. You can explore all sorts of animations, art, games, music, and stories. That’s not it, Scratch provides with animation-based tutorials, making it easier for your children to understand this program. You can even check the latest trends for art and animations.
Gaining Ideas with Scratch Online
Scratch has an entire ideas library filled with countless ideas to make your creative work look even better. It provides tutorials for all sorts of things like, animating a name, animating a character, making your characters fly, etc. For each activity, you can try the tutorial, download a set of Coding Cards. Scratch Coding Cards are very helpful in memorizing and understanding simple tricks that can help you in giving a boost of creativity to your interactive games, stories, music, and animations.
Around the World
Fun fact, Scratch is used in more than 150 different countries. Not only is it available in the English language, but it is also available in more than 40 different languages. You can change the language to whatever you prefer by clicking the menu at the bottom of the page. Or, in the project editor, by clicking the globe at the top of the page.
Scratch Online in Schools
Schools after learning the benefits of Scratch, have made it a part of their curriculums. It is used not just in schools but in fact, in colleges as well. You can learn all sorts of stuff from Scratch such as math, computer science, language arts, social studies, etc.
Scratch Online for Educators
Scratch is being integrated by educators across many different subject areas and age groups. Every month, the Scratch in Practice (SiP), releases a new theme to be explored and discussed by the educators. It lets you to share ideas and resources from the Scratch Team and educators around the world.
Resources for Educators
Scratch also provides teaching resources for teachers, which helps them to prepare and run Scratch classes and workshops. The Creative Computing from the ScratchEd Team at Harvard, is responsible for managing and providing with plans. They create good quality activities and strategies for introducing creative computing in the classroom.
Resources for Students
Students sources are also available so that students can learn in a much more harmonized manner. You can explore Scratch Tutorials to find out how you to create stories, animations, games, and more. Additionally, you have access to coding cards, which contains step-by-step instructions for a variety of projects.
Support and Funding
As Scratch is a world-recognized project, it has received financial support from the following organizations: National Science Foundation, Scratch Foundation, Siegel Family Endowment, Google, LEGO Foundation, Intel, Cartoon Network, Lemann Foundation, MacArthur Foundation. You can also support Scratch by seeing the Scratch Foundation donations page, or contact them at donate@scratch.mit.edu.
Final Thoughts
As it is said that children nowadays are computer kids, it makes it important for us to adopt new strategies for making them learn new things. Scratch is one of the most excellent strategies that a parent can adopt for nurturing his child’s mind into thinking creatively and efficiently. With this program, you and your child can have an enjoyable experience while learning all sorts of new things. You’ll be making a very wise decision by choosing this program for your children, as it will help him in becoming an intelligent and successful person. Remember, to never stop learning.
