How to Teach the Next Generation of Open Source with Scratch

Do you ever wish your kids would do something besides play video games on the computer? What if you could get a head start teaching them to be the next generation of open source developers?

Computers are increasingly easy to use, but programming is far more complex--and less accessible. For many of us who now have small children, programming began with BASIC programs on computers that forced you to make them do something by offering nothing but a command line.

At school, kids often learn how to use tools but not how to create. Tools become obsolete quickly, so knowing how to create is much more important, and the tools will be successively intuitive.

Andrew Baerg presented an introduction to teaching kids Scratch at Open Source Bridge. He recommends the cross-platform system, which was also the basis for the Girl Scouts game design workshop we posted about last month, for introducing kids to programming.