2.1 Scr0110: getting started  (Page 2/3)

If you don't know how to download and install the Scratch software, perhaps you can find a friend, relative, orneighbor who can assist in that regard.

Run the tutorials

Once you have Scratch installed on your computer, I recommend that you run every Scratch tutorial that you can find beginning with the tutorials at (External Link) .

I have listed several tutorials in Resources . Some are pretty good and some are not so good, but regardless, it would probably be useful for you towork through them all if you have the time available.

I also recommend that you run and pay particular attention to the Scratch explanatory video from MIT.

Programming fundamentals

I doubt that you will find many Scratch tutorials that cover the fundamental programming concepts that I plan to cover in these modules. Most of the available Scratch tutorials tend to ignore the fundamentals and jump immediatelyinto the higher-level features of Scratch such as playing music or viewing an image through a fisheye lens. There's nothing wrong with that. It is thosefeatures that are likely to keep today's students engaged long enough to learn the fundamentals and go on to bigger and better things.

Will concentrate on the fundamentals

However, the modules in this collection will concentrate on the fundamental concepts of computer programming as identified in the earlier moduletitled Tkc0100: Preface.

The fundamental concepts are transferable from one programming language to the next, and are required for learning the moreadvanced aspects of computer science.

The higher-level features of Scratch are not necessarily transferable to other languages. What I mean by that is thatjust because you know how to compose and play music in Scratch doesn't mean that you know how to compose and play music in some other programming language.However, if you understand the fundamental programming concepts embodied in Scratch, you should be able to transfer that understanding to other programminglanguages.

Drag and drop programming

One of the reasons that it will be useful for you to work through the tutorials is to help you gain proficiency in the drag and drop programming paradigm used with Scratch. This is a relatively new programming paradigm, andit is very different from the paradigm used for old school languages such as C++, C#, and my favorite programming language, Java.

"It seems strange to speak of Java as an old school programming language, but it has been a viable programming language for a littlemore than fifteen years now. In today's fast paced technology world, that probably makes it old school."

Mechanics are difficult to explain

Although drag and drop programming has some major advantages over the old paradigm for the beginning programming student, the mechanics involved are much moredifficult to explain in a written tutorial than the mechanics of programming with Java, for example.

With the old school paradigm, all that is necessary to create a program is to:

• Open a text editor and type in the program.
• Open a compiler and compile the program.
• Execute the program.