In my monthly CACM issue, I found a delightful and somewhat unusual article on “Scratch“. With Scratch, Mitch Resnick et al.  at the MIT Media Lab have created a programming environment with the lowest up front investment for children and teenagers. As you would expect in a platform that speaks to digital natives, Scratch comes with a host of rich media and social networking components built in.

My children love Scratch. They were able to program in Scratch and do things that appealed to them from the very first session. I like them to spend time with Scratch because it lifts the curtain on how computer games and digital entertainment work. It stimulates their creativity and a can-do attitude towards technology.

In the mid ’90s, I had the fortune to meet Mitch Resnick at the Media Lab. My company back then was a top tier sponsor. I saw the first prototypes of what became Lego Mindstorms (whose programming user experience put the early seeds for Scratch). It’s fascinating how Resnick repeatedly gets it. He might as well be the Steve Jobs of under age computer human interface.