2-for-1 Tuesday...
Jun. 14th, 2011 01:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fiberaddict:lol: HAD to come back and update! I have been browsing the Well-Trained Mind forums (ummm....don't. Some of the folks there are SO on the WTM bandwagon it isn't funny. 6 hours of school for a 6th grader? Ummm....no. I even have a psychologist's opinion that 15 minutes a day per subject CAN be enough, IF the kid *gets* the concept. Herself would be expected to do 10 hours of school a day, PLUS free-reading. Again....NO.), and kept seeing mention of something called "scratch". I had no clue, so ignored it...
Until yesterday. Someone posted looking for the "real" link, and it was given. Huh - it's scratch.mit.edu. MIT? Sign me up!
I discussed it with the kids today....Himself used my phone while we were out to see what it was all about. He got ALL excited...so when we got home, I downloaded the FREE program to their Mac....and he is quite happily playing around with it right now.
It's a programming program - you can make animations, movies, etc. Looks like it's drag-and-drop, and it seems to be pretty self-explanatory at this stage. (He's making a cartoon cat walk across the screen right now. :lol:)
There's another program I'll be looking at - Alice. I *think* the addy is Alice.org (EDIT: it is)- it's another programming program, but it seems to be more "working" type rather than games (but I could be wrong). EDIT - looks to be a 3D programming program. Middle school Alice is for story-telling, HS and College is for interactive games and videos.
I think we'll be doing this as our "Computer Arts" class, 2 days a week. Go, check it out - they have it for Mac, Windoze, and Linux, so *everybody* can play, and it's from MIT, so you KNOW it's good. :grin:
Have fun!
Until yesterday. Someone posted looking for the "real" link, and it was given. Huh - it's scratch.mit.edu. MIT? Sign me up!
I discussed it with the kids today....Himself used my phone while we were out to see what it was all about. He got ALL excited...so when we got home, I downloaded the FREE program to their Mac....and he is quite happily playing around with it right now.
It's a programming program - you can make animations, movies, etc. Looks like it's drag-and-drop, and it seems to be pretty self-explanatory at this stage. (He's making a cartoon cat walk across the screen right now. :lol:)
There's another program I'll be looking at - Alice. I *think* the addy is Alice.org (EDIT: it is)- it's another programming program, but it seems to be more "working" type rather than games (but I could be wrong). EDIT - looks to be a 3D programming program. Middle school Alice is for story-telling, HS and College is for interactive games and videos.
I think we'll be doing this as our "Computer Arts" class, 2 days a week. Go, check it out - they have it for Mac, Windoze, and Linux, so *everybody* can play, and it's from MIT, so you KNOW it's good. :grin:
Have fun!
