Scratch

I used Microworlds in a school and a museum summer camp setting and faced the same question that you ask.  I work mainly with 9 to 12 year olds but have also tried both programs with younger kids.  I switched over to Scratch completely in the school setting and have been delighted to see the surge in interest and energy kids have for programming projects.  Possible reasons in favor of Scratch:

Kids can do more of their own debugging--their errors tend to be about syntax in Scratch instead of spelling.
The choices for blocks are there on the screen and they have been more likely to find something useful and try it out on their own.
Variables make just about instant sense, whereas working through setting them up and getting them to work was something most kids this age never became independent with.
The kids are taking the programming and trying new things on their own at home, because it is free and because of all of the above.
They can be successful at a pretty basic level and then are motivated to try new things.  With Microworlds, I always had a few kids that got it and an awful lot that needed considerable handholding.  The new EX version of MW gets even more complex for a beginning user to sort through.
We also had many problems with compatiblity with Microworlds and our Macs--unexplained crashes.  The bugs in Scratch are getting ironed out nicely.

The kids who have done both tell me that Scratch is more fun but people who want challenge should also learn MW.

This isn't exactly educational rational in terms of what kind of programming language makes sense, but for me the way kids take off on their own with it matters.

Karen
Expo School in St. Paul, MN

Last edited by room209 (2007-05-28 11:51:22)