Learning to solve problems, design, develop stories and interactive games has become easy to do with ScratchJr. With this new application, children aged 5 and 7 years of age can develop programming and graphic design skills while playing and having fun at home with their tablet.
This application is the newest from an educational platform called Scratch, which was launched a few years ago by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as part of a Lifelong Kindergarten research group.
This web application teaches programming language, combining a photo editor and sound, allowing children to learn code through interactive games image blocks.
“Not only are you learning to code, you're encoding to learn.”
People generally think that programming is very difficult and only few can do it. The reality is that learning code is just like learning to speak a second language.
Mitch Resnick, Director of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Laboratory, believes that the “program can and should be for everyone.” This application will help introduce the younger generation to technology's growth area in recent years: the world of computing.
Crowd funded by Kickstarter, ScratchJr aimed to raise $25 000 but after only two day they had already received over $ 77,000 U.S. dollars in funding.
Although the ScratchJr application is currently available only for iPad, its creators have stated they Android version of this interactive learning game will be launched in the near future.
Written by Salvador Morales of Mijo! Brands.