Comment by rickcarlino
5 days ago
I was a naysayer before I had kids, too. I now am able to get a first person view of Scratch usage through my child who likes the platform very much.
What's missing in a lot of these discussions about Scratch efficacy is the community aspect. Kids like getting a response in the comments section from their peers and many of the alternatives proposed don't have that. Without an active community, a lot of kids might never use the alternative despite being "better". In the case of Scratch (unlike Khan academy, which he completed also), he keeps using it, keeps trying things and keeps coming back because of the rewarding community interactions.
My kids showed more interest in BASIC GOTO 10 on an emulator than school Scratch.
I think it is a decent programming paradigm but really just teach 6502 binary code entered by flipping switches and blinking lights and let only the children who love it go on to learn programming and computer science.
Mine too!
A while back, I powered up an Atari 800, and she was fascinated.
She was asking questions, trying out things. Something about that simple, imperative, dynamic type of language connects in ways that most conceptually purer and more powerful languages just do not. Python was close, but then it swerved.