Empowering Kids to Create and
Share Programmable Media
Andrés Monroy-Hernández
MIT Media Lab | andresmh@media.mit.edu
Mitchel Resnick
MIT Media Lab | mres@media.mit.edu
[ 1] Resnick, M., “Sowing
the Seeds for a More
Creative Society.”
Learning & Leading
with Technology,
International Society
for Technology in
Education (ISTE),
December 2007.
[ 2] Resnick, M., Y.
Kafai, J. Maeda, J.
Maloney, and N. Rusk,
“A Networked, Media-Rich Programming
Environment to Enhance
Technological Fluency
at After-School Centers
in Economically
Disadvantaged
Communities.” Proposal
[funded] to the National
Science Foundation,
Washington, DC: 2003.
[ 3] Monroy-Hernández,
A., “ScratchR: Sharing
user-generated programmable media.”
Proceedings of the 6th
International Conference
on Interaction Design
and Children, Aalborg,
Denmark, 2007.
March + April 2008
[ 4] Jenkins, Henry,
Convergence Culture.
New York: N YU Press,
2006.
[ 5] Lave, J. and
Wenger, E., Situated
Learning: Legitimate
Peripheral Participation,
Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1991.
There are now many websites,
such as Flickr and You Tube
and blogs, which support user-generated content, enabling
people to create and share text,
graphics, photos, and videos. But
for the most part, Web 2.0 does
not include interactive content.
People interact with Web-based
animations and games all the
time, but few people can create
and share their own interactive
content.
The Scratch project [ 1] from
MIT Media Lab aims to change
that, making it easy for everyone, especially children and
teens, to create and share
interactive stories, games, and
animations on the Web, in the
participatory spirit of Web 2.0.
With the Scratch programming
environment [ 2], users snap
together graphical programming
blocks to control the actions and
interactions of rich media content, including photos, graphics,
music, and sound. Then they
upload their interactive creations
to the shared Scratch website,
where other members of the
Scratch community can interact
with the projects on the site and
download the original source
code to examine or modify the
project [ 3].
The Scratch website offers an
alternate model for how children
might use the Web as a platform
for learning, enabling them to
create and share personally
meaningful projects, not simply
access information. Children create and share Scratch projects
as a way to express themselves
creatively, much as they would
paint a picture or build a castle
with LEGO bricks. In the process
they not only learn important
math and computer science
concepts, but they also develop
important learning skills: creative thinking, effective communication, critical analysis,
systematic experimentation,
iterative design, and continual
learning. We believe that the
ability to produce (not simply
interact with) interactive content
is a key ingredient to achieving
digital literacy and becoming a
full participant in the interactive
online world.
Learning Through Online
Community
The Scratch Online Community
makes programming more
engaging by turning it into a
social activity. Hobbit, a 14-year-
old member of the community
explains: “When I think about it,
recognition for my work is what
really drew me into Scratch.
Other things played a part, but
the feeling that my work would
be seen is what really motivated
me.” The website provides a wide
range of entry points for community interactions. Children
comment on projects, upload
their own projects, and can
become involved in existing projects. The site is also a repository
of user-generated content that
serves as a source of inspiration and appropriable objects
for new ideas. Users can connect with each other, forming a
social network of creators and
collaborators through the use of
“friendships,” galleries (groups
of projects based on a topic), and
forums where users can post
their questions or interests to be
discussed with others.
Inspired by Jenkins’s description of the states of participation
in fan-fiction communities [ 4],
we put forward the idea that
members of user-generated-content communities tend to move
in four different roles or states of
participation: passive consumption, active consumption, passive
production, and active production. In order to build a successful community, it is essential for
the sites in question to support
and welcome users regardless of
which state of participation they
fall into. For example, Lave and
Wenger argue that “peripheral
participation” is a legitimate
