Scratch Programming Courses

What is Scratch Programming?

Scratch is a visual-based programming language that's child-friendly with a thriving community and a large playground. Scratch projects encourage children to explore programming early on. The block-like interface allows users to get experience forming commands and may pave the way for deeper interests in computer science later on. It was created by Mitch Resnick, the LEGO Papert Professor of Learning Research at the MIT Media Lab. He and the Scratch team designed the environment to be a fun, accessible way for both children and adults to get into programming. The group released Scratch 3.0 earlier this year. Scratch programming language has a fun, lighthearted playground with plenty of documentation. With each version of Scratch, users gain more experience and get comfortable manipulating their virtual environment. The drag-and-drop programming style is an excellent, low-pressure introduction to the concept of building programs.

Learn Scratch Programming

Learning Scratch involves manipulating code blocks within the playground. The robust online community provides support and documentation so that scratch users have plenty of resources. However, courses designed to help you get the most out of this programming environment could be an efficient way to break into it. You can get into Scratch on your own easily, but sometimes having step-by-step directions to building help jumpstart your learning. These programming concepts could pave the way for more significant projects down the road with other programming languages, so getting started is your first step.

Scratch Courses and Certifications

Harvey Mudd offers a course in Scratch Programming Basics in partnership with edX.org's educational platform. You'll learn the fundamentals to get you started so that you spend less time confused and more time building. If you're a teacher, Delft's course specifically addresses the skills teachers need to build apps in Scratch. If your focus is allowing your children to explore, Delft's course, Scratch Programming for Kids (8+) is designed to get children started in the Scratch playground. Young people will need coding skills for jobs in the future, so starting your children out in elementary school could be an excellent way to build those skills early.

Explore Programming with Scratch

The Scratch community is dedicated to the lighthearted and accessible side of programming with block style programming. Once you've got the basics, you can build dynamic worlds for yourself or explore things like app creation. Scratchers create both fun and functional programs, and the latest version gives you even more capability. If you've meant to get into computer programming and haven't found the time, Scratch could be your ticket.