Book Image

Scratch 1.4: Beginner's Guide

Book Image

Scratch 1.4: Beginner's Guide

Overview of this book

If you have the imaginative power to design complex multimedia projects but can't adapt to programming languages, then Scratch 1.4: Beginner's Guide is the book for you. Imagine how good you'll feel when you drag-and-drop your way to interactive games, stories, graphic artwork, computer animations, and much more using Scratch even if you have never programmed before. This book provides teachers, parents, and new programmers with a guided tour of Scratch's features by creating projects that can be shared, remixed, and improved upon in your own lesson plans. Soon you will be creating games, stories, and animations by snapping blocks of "code" together. When you program you solve problems. In order to solve problems, you think, take action, and reflect upon your efforts. Scratch teaches you to program using a fun, accessible environment that's as easy as dragging and dropping blocks from one part of the screen to another. In this book you will program games, stories, and animations using hands-on examples that get you thinking and tinkering. For each project, you start with a series of steps to build something. Then you pause to put our actions into context so that you can relate our code to the actions on Scratch's stage. Throughout each chapter, you'll encounter challenges that encourage you to experiment and learn. One of the things you're really going to love is that, as you begin working through the examples in the book, you won't be able to stop your imagination and the ideas will stream as fast as you can think of them. Write them down. You'll quickly realize there are a lot of young minds in your home, classroom, or community group that could benefit from Scratch's friendly face. Teach them, please.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Scratch 1.4 Beginner's Guide
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
Preface
Scratch Resources
Index

Chapter 1. Welcome to Scratch!

Learn how to create animations, interactive stories, and games the drag-and-drop way using the computer programming language Scratch. Scratch provides an intuitive interface that makes learning to program fun, easy, and well-suited as an educational tool for our children and students.

We don't need to artificially restrict Scratch to the classroom though it makes a fantastic teaching tool. Anyone with a desire to learn a programming language can use Scratch as an introductory language. Perhaps you've tried other languages, such as Ruby, PHP, Java, or Python and had trouble getting started for one reason or another. Even if you can barely create a presentation using PowerPoint or OpenOffice.org, you'll find comfort in Scratch's building-block approach to programming.

After using Scratch, programming will make sense. It will seem easy. It will bring a smile to your face.

Whether you want to improve your digital literacy skills by learning to program or you want to learn a new tool to help you teach your students, here's to happy Scratchin'.