2-for-1 Tuesday...

[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!

Comments

[ali snowdale (from livejournal.com)]

danny has been trying to make a stop motion lego movie on my computer and he has been asking his uncles how to make video games. he will LOVE this!

[fiberaddict.livejournal.com]

I hope so! The kids spent a couple of hours this morning messing around with it. They've both figured out how to drop in "outside" characters (His is Sonic the Hedgehog, hers Pokemons) and get them to move around.

I figure it's a good way to introduce programming......and it's fun. :lol: