Tag Archives: coding

Creative tools for children should be designed to ensure that learning is playful and engaging. At Scratch, we believe that it is important to use a co-design process, ensuring that the needs and perspectives of our users—especially children—are taken into account at every stage. By involving young people in the design of ScratchJr and Scratch, we can create a platform that truly meets their needs and helps them to develop the skills they need to thrive in the digital age.…

Growing up, it seemed completely natural that my mother worked as a computer programmer. Terms like COBOL and C were commonplace in our house, and in the evenings while I did homework, she would pore over printed-out lines of code to find bugs. We’d often go into her office on weekends so she could figure out a problem in the server room (always bundled up in heavy sweaters because it was absolutely freezing in there to keep the mainframe cooled…

For the fourth part of this series, we asked experts to focus their predictions on digital play by answering the question, “How will the way children play with digital media change in the coming months and/or years as a result of the coronavirus pandemic?” Creativity, community, and kindness Mitchel Resnick, PhD, Professor of Learning Research at the MIT Media Lab, is author of the book Lifelong Kindergarten: Cultivating Creativity through Projects, Passion, Peers, and Play. On March 18, 2020, a…

I fell in love the moment my dad brought our first clunky computer home. Like many other children who grew up in the 1990s, I grew up using computers to write stories and explore the Internet. The term “computer science” conjured a dark cloak of mystery, with a hoodie, or a pair of dungarees.  Yet I fell in love with computers and the possibilities that I began to see. Today, I write picture books about technology to make the world…

This summer, my High Point University colleagues and I are hosting a video game camp with twenty 9- to 11-year-olds in our local Boys and Girls Club. Across a series of five sessions, the students are learning some basic video game design principles and coding. Alternating their roles each session—from visual designer, sound designer, and programmer—they are each creating their own simple video game. At the end of the camp they will be able bring their game home to play…

Imagine a room full of families gathered together around laptops. They’re making animations and games using computer programming. Many of the children or their parents are pointing at or touching the screens as they discuss storylines and game mechanics. As is often the case with technology, the children appear to be taking the lead, guiding their parents. The young experts sometimes maneuver their parent’s hand on the mouse, showing them where to click or what to drag-and-drop on the screen.…

Last summer, I had the pleasure of interning with the team behind the National STEM Video Game Challenge. While working with the Cooney Center, I helped create and publish online content to spread the word about the STEM Challenge, and I also had the opportunity to work with students in game design workshops. The technology available to kids today extends far beyond what was available ten years ago when I was in middle school. It was incredible to watch these middle and high…

Both Minecraft and YouTube are ubiquitous in today’s children’s media culture. And like millions of other children, my six-year-old son loves to watch Minecraft videos on YouTube. He frequently watches Grian’s how-to-build-it Minecraft videos. He enjoys the silly antics from Pat and Jen of Gaming with Jen, the husband-and-wife team who produce PopularMMOs. And he loves Stampy Cat—but more on Stampy later. Minecraft-themed YouTube videos are definitely a different genre from the children’s television that I grew up watching! As is…

For 10-year-old Puja Chopade of Madison, Alabama, major world problems like global warming served as inspiration for her video game design. Puja’s original game, Save the World!, won the Middle School Game Design Document category of the 2016 National STEM Video Game Challenge. In Save the World!, players learn about ecological problems around the world, and suggest possible solutions in order to earn points. As points are collected, the player is able to grow a variety of animals through different…

Brooklyn Humphrey won the Best Middle School Unity game in the STEM Challenge last year. Here she shares her memories of what it was like to develop her first game, and what she is working on now. I never would’ve thought that I would win the STEM Challenge. I didn’t even think that I would make a video game in the first place, but now I’ve learned that anything is possible. Here’s a glimpse of my experience making my first video game.…