Programming software launched for children

MIT media labs has launched software designed to make it easy for children to create stories, games, music and animation for the web.

Scratch, which is free to use, gives children from the ages of eight, and upwards, the opportunity to build interactive creations using a graphic-based coding language, which has been made simple to use.

Objects and characters can be chosen from a menu or can be cut and pasted from the web. They can then be animated by putting together and modifying different "action" blocks such as “move” or “kick a ball”.

For example, if someone wanted to animate a dog running across the screen they would do this by modifying a “move” block with the “run” command.

The number of steps and direction they would like the object to take can also be determined by clicking on the menu option.

For more complicated actions such as kicking a ball whilst running, users must stack the “kick ball” block onto the move block. Animation and colour changes can also be added to this.

Any creations can then be shared in the same way as videos on YouTube giving the chance for other children to see the end result and provide feedback or borrow elements from other Scratch projects to act as raw materials for their own.

Professor of Learning Research at MIT Labs and head of the Scratch development team said, "Until now, only expert programmers could make interactive creations for the Web. Scratch opens the gates for everyone,"

"As kids work on Scratch projects, they learn to think creatively and solve problems systematically. [These are] skills that are critical to success in the 21st century," he added.

He also believes that it will be a useful tool for teaching children about computational thinking and enthusing "the next generation" of IT professionals.

Scratch is now available to download free and works with both Apple Macs and Windows PCs.