MIT's ScratchJr App On iPad For The Young And Prodigious Coders
Once upon a time, knowing DOS commands for launching a program was supposed to be a herculean task for kids but now the scenario has changed a lot as kindergarten children have started coding for fun. The researchers at MIT Media Lab in collaboration with Tufts University, and Playful Invention Company (PICO) have developed a freely available iPad app named ScratchJr. This new app will encourage 5-7 year-old children to program their own interactive, imaginative and creative games and stories. Gradually, this process of developing their own projects will help them to enhance their problem-solving skills that can be a stepping stone for their academic achievements.
The researchers devised the idea of ScratchJr (<a href="https://www.scratchjr.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">ScratchJr - Home</a>) by using the existing popular Scratch programming language (<a href="https://scratch.mit.edu/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Scratch - Imagine, Program, Share</a>), a tool developed by MIT Media Lab’s Lifelong Kindergarten research team. Scratch targets the kids of age eight years and above. With a perspective that coding is the new literacy and should be for everyone, the ScratchJr team has redesigned the interface in such a way that even the children who have just started reading can create their own projects.
While doing programming in ScratchJr, kids need to integrate the graphical blocks that will allow the characters in the story or games to perform different activities such as dancing, singing, jumping etc. The children can also add their own voices and photos. They can also rework their characters by using paint editor. Finally, they need to use the programming blocks for the completion of their project.
Now, the team is planning to develop ScratchJr software versions for other operating systems such as android. Researchers also want to add user friendly features like sharing of ScratchJr projects and support materials for parents and teachers.
The ScratchJr was funded by National Science Foundation, LEGO Foundation, British Telecommunications, Code-to-Learn Foundation and Kickstarter campaign.
The researchers devised the idea of ScratchJr (<a href="https://www.scratchjr.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">ScratchJr - Home</a>) by using the existing popular Scratch programming language (<a href="https://scratch.mit.edu/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Scratch - Imagine, Program, Share</a>), a tool developed by MIT Media Lab’s Lifelong Kindergarten research team. Scratch targets the kids of age eight years and above. With a perspective that coding is the new literacy and should be for everyone, the ScratchJr team has redesigned the interface in such a way that even the children who have just started reading can create their own projects.
While doing programming in ScratchJr, kids need to integrate the graphical blocks that will allow the characters in the story or games to perform different activities such as dancing, singing, jumping etc. The children can also add their own voices and photos. They can also rework their characters by using paint editor. Finally, they need to use the programming blocks for the completion of their project.
Now, the team is planning to develop ScratchJr software versions for other operating systems such as android. Researchers also want to add user friendly features like sharing of ScratchJr projects and support materials for parents and teachers.
The ScratchJr was funded by National Science Foundation, LEGO Foundation, British Telecommunications, Code-to-Learn Foundation and Kickstarter campaign.
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