Here is the original communications of the acm article: http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2009/11/48421-scratch-programming-for-all/fulltext http://cacm.acm.org/mag

Here is the original communications of the acm article: http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2009/11/48421-scratch-programming-for-all/fulltext http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2009/11/48421-scratch-programm... I've mentioned it before but I am a big fan of scratch, I showed it to my nieces (my own kids are too young) ad they showed it to their cousins and started a game contest to see who could build the coolest game. The fact that you program by assembling blocks makes that whole idea of understanding error messages and dealing with syntax errors much easier than when I started programming. The result are usually 2d animation programs, in the case of nephews and nieces: games. These programs have a look much like the flash games they like to play online, I believe that also has a positive effect. I like the fact they went from being "passive" computer and internet users to being much more active.