Scratch
Early childhood education and the most advanced artificial intelligence have more in common than you might think—one school of thought on teaching machines how to learn focuses on figuring out how children learn and then mimicking that process. Educational robotics and software developed at CSAIL, the Media Lab, and other MIT departments and centers have helped children to learn about computers and computers to learn about the world. The long history of these kinds of MIT projects includes LOGO turtles, Lego®-LOGO, Lego® Mindstorms®, programmable Crickets, and One Laptop per Child. Scratch is a recent project that allows users to combine new and preexisting sounds, graphics, and program pieces with the same freedom and creativity that they might use to combine vinyl record samples into a new piece of music.
Exhibited:Scratch—interactive display
Mitchel Resnick and the MIT Media Laboratory Lifelong Kindergarten Group 2007
To try: http://scratch.mit.edu
photo: courtesy of Mitchel Resnick and the Lifelong Kindergarten Group
Related information
Lifelong Kindergarten homepage for Scratch
Audio lecture on Scratch and learning in a global community
I would love to bring my daughter to visit if there is a demo on display at MIT. Is there?
There are two short videos about Scratch as well as an interactive display that shows some interesting projects chosen by the Scratch team.
This object was voted TEACHER’S PET in the MIT Museum Yearbook Awards on December 9, 2011!