A highlight of the Makerfaire this past May 2018 was this talk:

Meet Scratch at its inception from a users perspective: Making art with Scratch allows for collaboration. Remixing in Scratch is a powerful element. Scratch is an online community, not just a coding program. Ipzy Studio offers other creators her artwork. She created a tutorial for backgrounds. Never imagined kids would do tutorials. Scratch creators wanted to give kids a voice. It’s programming & coding with writing. Per creator Mitchel Resnick, just learning to code is not enough. We need to develop kids to be creative thinkers. 4P’s:

projects
passions
peers
play

“You don’t develop your own voice if you solve a puzzle,” says Mitchel Resnick.  “Kids learn best when they can work on a wide range of projects. Not all kids learn doing the same project.”

Most learning happens in collaboration with others. Play is ratified toward engaging with the world. 200 million people interacted with Scratch last year. A 5th P: purpose. Creating projects that are important to them.

“Scratch is a really open place,” says Jinho.

What’s next with Scratch 3.0?

Kids can create things connects to voice commands. & it will work with LEGO Wedo.

Scratch bit will take Scratch into the physical world. Integrating open API’s.

They want kids to develop into critical thinkers. Not coders.

Projects in Scratch are covered by Creative Commons. Use anything you want but reference the creator. Scratch 3.0 will be HTML5/Javascript based.

No more Flash needed.

Students will be able to author on tablets beyond ScratchJr. Not ready for smartphones yet.

Keep on scratching.