The Next Generation of Scratch

Since the release of Scratch in 2007, young people around the world have programmed and shared more than 15 million Scratch projects — with more than 22,000 new projects being shared in the online community every day. The first generation of Scratch was an application that kids downloaded to local machines. With Scratch 2.0, the second and current generation of Scratch, kids create and share their interactive stories, games, and animations directly in web browsers. Now, the MIT Scratch Team is preparing to support that creativity in new ways, with a project informally called Scratch 3.0 — the next generation of Scratch. At the Google I/O conference held last month, the Team announced a collaboration with Google to develop Scratch Blocks, a “new generation of graphical programming blocks.” For the Scratch Team, developing new programming blocks is a first step in the development of Scratch 3.0. In addition to making Scratch Blocks available to other developers, the Scratch Team will use the blocks themselves to create an even more intuitive programming experience and to continue to empower kids to express themselves through technology.