Scratch - A Step In The Right Direction

A couple of weeks ago in Boston, as part of my work doctoral work at Pepperdine we were granted the opportunity to visit the MIT media labs. My cadre mates and I were treated to several demonstrations of what may emerging of the the most recent research in education, learning, and technology. The demonstration that made the biggest impact on me was the demonstration of a piece of software known as scratch. I was able to talk with one of the principal developers of this program. Scratch will be used as a great tool of instructional technology.

Scratch will allow students to learn while working in an environment that has been designed with the latest techniques of learning research built right in. However, the most important aspect of this wonderful new tool is that it is slated to be given to many poverty stricken areas in the world such as South America and other countries that have many children living in poverty. This was very pleasing to me. As we have learned much of the digital divide is based on socioeconomic factors. The kind of work being done by the good people at the MIT media labs with such efforts as scratch is a great start to eradicating the digital divide.