UCLA, MIT make computer programming kid-friendly

Computer programming has become as simple as building a block due to the efforts of educational researchers from UCLA and engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The joint effort resulted in Scratch, an educational computer programming tool developed for 8 to 16-year-olds.

Instead of a language code, Scratch uses building blocks that students assemble to create a program, and allows young students to create simple games and presentations, said Yasmin Kafai, an associate professor of education and the lead UCLA researcher for the development of Scratch.

“We did all the field testing and research in Computer Clubhouses in South Los Angeles, which is an after-school program where kids can go and do mostly creative applications with technology,” Kafai said, adding that Scratch was intentionally created to appeal to urban youth and show them what they can do with programming.

One of the early users of Scratch was Karen Randall, a schoolteacher from Expo Elementary School in St. Paul, Minnesota, who tested the product before it was released to the public.

Randall, who preferred to communicate by e-mail, said she beta-tested Scratch two years ago at the Science Museum of Minnesota, and MIT allowed her to expand Scratch to the classroom.

“Unlike other (computer-programming) languages, Scratch is immediately accessible to children because the programming comes in blocks that they assemble,” Randall said, adding that her students don’t have to worry about typing mistakes with Scratch.

Randall said she integrates Scratch into classroom assignments such as book reports.

“We studied the history of life on Earth and related that to creation stories from around the world. Students made animated versions of the stories using Scratch,” she said.

Mitchel Resnick, the lead developer of Scratch and a professor at MIT’s media lab, said his team created Scratch because he found that the best learning experiences occur when children are actively engaged with their work.

“When a lot of kids use computers, they spend time just browsing and clicking. Scratch gives them the opportunity (to) design and create their online experience,” Resnick said.

Resnick added that he was excited about the reception Scratch has received since it was widely publicized in the media earlier this week.

“There is a steady stream of new projects being added to the Scratch Web site as kids around the world upload them,” he said.

Programs children have made on Scratch include stick-figure images, as well as outside photos and artwork. The Scratch Web site’s “most loved” programs include a shooter game and an animated parody of George W. Bush.

Kylie Peppler, an education doctoral student at UCLA who worked with Kafai on research for Scratch, said she believes it has had a positive impact on the underprivileged community because it is free to download, and many of the children who have used Scratch now want to be software and game designers.

The program is especially useful since there are few computer-programming classes at schools, particularly those in low-income neighborhoods, Kafai said.

Peppler added that several students she has worked with said Scratch was like paper because they could do anything they wanted with it.

Kafai said she also uses Scratch in her undergraduate curriculum for UCLA education classes.

“Most undergraduates don’t have an opportunity to learn programming unless they are in engineering or computer science. I incorporate Scratch into my curriculum to help dispel their misconceptions about programming,” Kafai said, adding that her students use their knowledge to mentor children in Scratch at the Computer Clubhouses.

Fourth-year computer science student Johann Ly said having a programming interface like Scratch would have been perfect earlier in his life when he used to create programs out of curiosity, because it is written in plain English and conveniently structured into blocks.

“I could create some amusing programs just by imitating my friends’ program code at a glance, but my creativity was always limited by the syntax that I could actually understand,” Ly said.

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