Tkc0100: preface  (Page 4/7)

In my opinion, the most difficult aspect of teaching coding to beginners is getting their attention and getting them engaged. Therefore, the firstgroup of instructional modules in this collection will be designed to help beginners, their parents, and their teachers get started programming with Scratch .

Links to useful Scratch material

Up until May 9, 2013, the latest version of Scratch was version 1.4. For several days prior to May 9, the Scratch website was shut down to allow the folks at MIT to migrate from version 1.4 to version 2.0.

On May 9, 2013, Scratch version 2.0 was officially released and the Scratch website was reopened reflecting that change. I will have more to say about the new versionof Scratch later. In the meantime, some of the following links may take you to information about the old version, some maytake you to information about the new version, and unfortunately, some may have become broken during the transition.

• Click here to watch a short video about Scratch .
• Click here to see what Mitch Resnick, director of the Lifelong Kindergarten group at MIT Media Lab has to say about the need for beginners to learn to code.
• Click here to view the online version of an interesting Scratch project named Day Dream.
• Click here to take an online tour of Scratch .
• Click here to view online Scratch tutorial videos from MIT.
• Click here to view thousands of online scratch projects.
• Click here to learn more about scratch.

New features in Scratch 2.0

There are a number of new features in v2.0, some of which are very nice. I will refer you to this preview article that discusses some of those new features.

Internet access is required

There are a couple of critical aspects of v2.0 that I will mention. Although there was a strong web component that involved sharing projects with Scratch v1.4, that version of Scratch was a program that was downloaded, installed on the local machine, and run locally. Once the program was installed on the localmachine, Internet access was nice but no longer required.

Scratch v2.0 requires Internet access to be of any use. The developmentprogram runs online in a browser. Therefore, those without Internet access and those with poor Internet access won't be able to use Scratch v2.0.

Version 1.4 is still available

Fortunately, as of May 2013, it is still possible to download and install v1.4 from (External Link) . Then the program can be run locally without a requirement for Internet access.

The adobe flash player is required

Another critical aspect v2.0 is that the Adobe Flash player must be installed on the local machine to use v2.0. While this may not be a problem in most cases, itis something that potential users of v2.0 should be aware of.

My publications for Scratch v2.0

On the release date for v2.0 (May 9, 2013) , I was about two-thirds complete in the publication of a series of modules designed to connect the fun side of Scratch v1.4 to the serious world of Computer Science. I immediately put that v1.4 series on the back burner and began a newseries built around Scratch v2.0 . However, for the benefit of those who still need information about v1.4, I did not deletethe modules that I had previously published for that version. You will find those modules in this collection in addition to the modules for v2.0.