Download HELPSHEET 3A: What is Scratch

HELPSHEET 3A: What is Scratch
What is it?
Simply put Scratch is a programming language designed for students,
scholars, teachers, and parents for a range of educational and
entertainment constructivist purposes from math and science projects.
enjoyable experience. This also enables teaching staff that may not
have a huge amount of computing knowledge to easily introduce it into
their classroom.
A brief history
The first version of Scratch was developed in 2003 by the Lifelong
Kindergarten group, led by Mitchel Resnick, at the MIT Media Lab.
The first official website was originally launched in 2006. Scratch 1.0
was then later available to the public for download in January 8 2007.
The Scratch website after the release of public project sharing
In March 2007, project sharing was possible and the whole Scratch
website was completely redesigned. The public were able to create,
share and remix their own projects as well as others.
Scratch continued to update their site until late 2012 when they
released Scratch 2.0 which offered many updates to the programming
system and website design.
Why use scratch?
The main goal behind scratch was to create a platform that would allow
any user an entrance into the world of programming. It provides a very
visual element allowing you to see in real terms the relations between
differing pieces of code.
Scratch is really a huge asset when looking at introducing
programming to children, as the bright visual display makes coding a
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