Scratch

lpress · 2009-03-13 17:53:48

I just discovered Scratch, and it looks terrific!

I want to work with my small grandchildren, but can also imagine using it in a lower-division programming course I teach.

Are there plans for more I/O? If it had keyboard input and assignment statements and expressions, I could teach my programming course using Scratch.

Speech synthesis and voice recognition would be icing on the cake!

Maybe some of this stuff is already there, and I have not yet found it. Let me know.

Larry Press

Paddle2See · 2009-03-13 18:32:08

There are variables and assignment statements in Scratch currently, along with a variety of operations you can perform on them. Look under the Variables and Numbers tabs. Version 1.3 also has Lists (Arrays). There is a strong possibility that keyboard input of text strings and/or numbers will show up in the next release. I don't know of any plans to add Speech synthesis or voice recognition at this point. That would be pretty cool though!

lpress · 2009-03-14 23:33:35

Paddle2See wrote:
I don't know of any plans to add Speech synthesis or voice recognition at this point. That would be pretty cool though!

I agree -- please put it in the suggestion box.

Who does the development and makes development decisions? Is Scratch open source?

lpress · 2009-03-14 23:37:55

Paddle2See wrote:
There is a strong possibility that keyboard input of text strings and/or numbers will show up in the next release.

I hope it does. Do you have an estimate of when that will be released? I'd like to build some teaching modules around it.

Larry

lpress · 2009-03-14 23:55:00

Paddle2See wrote:
There are variables and assignment statements in Scratch currently, along with a variety of operations you can perform on them.

I found them -- thanks. Have you plans for operations on strings like sub-string, left and right? That sort of thing would complement the keyboard input.

Paddle2See · 2009-03-15 04:45:21

lpress wrote:
I hope it does. Do you have an estimate of when that will be released? I'd like to build some teaching modules around it.

Larry

Version 1.4 is currently in Beta. In the past, Scratch has had major releases on about a six month schedule. Since the last release was in September, six months would bring us to March so I would think the next release will be soon.

lpress wrote:
Who does the development and makes development decisions? Is Scratch open source?

The source code for Scratch has been released here

http://info.scratch.mit.edu/Source_Code

To contact the Scratch Team directly you can go here

http://scratch.mit.edu/contact/us

I'm sure they would be interested in your thoughts!

Also, if you are planning a course around Scratch, you might share your ideas on the Educators section of these forums.

Scratch

archived forums

#1 2009-03-13 17:53:48

Using Scratch in a programming course -- input, assignment and speech?

#2 2009-03-13 18:32:08

Re: Using Scratch in a programming course -- input, assignment and speech?

#3 2009-03-14 23:33:35

Re: Using Scratch in a programming course -- input, assignment and speech?

Paddle2See wrote:

#4 2009-03-14 23:37:55

Re: Using Scratch in a programming course -- input, assignment and speech?

Paddle2See wrote:

#5 2009-03-14 23:55:00

Re: Using Scratch in a programming course -- input, assignment and speech?

Paddle2See wrote:

#6 2009-03-15 04:45:21

Re: Using Scratch in a programming course -- input, assignment and speech?

lpress wrote:

lpress wrote:

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