Scratch Programming for Teens

I want to start off by saying that I appreciate the author's efforts to introduce Scratch to kids. He does a great job of thoroughly going through the Scratch programming environment and talking about all the nuances it contains. It's a great book for anyone who wants to give the most basic introduction to Scratch. I am a teacher myself, and this book contains many of the concepts that I introduce to my students in the first two days of learning.What I don't like about this book is that it over-emphasizes the animation side of Scratch, while brushing over or entirely omitting all the programming concepts that Scratch introduces. Scratch offers young students the opportunity to make complicated games and applications quickly and easily. For instructors, there are so many opportunities to introduce students to industry-level ideas in programming. However, the book tends toward programming concepts that offer immediate visual response to students, while ignoring many of the applications of more complicated features, like message passing and variables.Overall, I think that this book is definitely not "for teens", as it targets a much younger age group. The applications from the book target students through immediate visual stimulation, while older students benefit from a more methodical and thorough approach to teaching Scratch that highlights the importance of variables, message passing, and program clarity. While I appreciate the author's efforts to be a definitive guide for introducing Scratch, I believe there are much better resources available for teaching programming. I especially recommend BYOB (Build Your Own Blocks), found at byob.berkeley.edu, which extends Scratch to allow functional programming and custom block creation. They also include a thorough manual that highlights all the important concepts that a programmer should understand.

Had I been more on the ball, I would have returned this book, it is really bad. The first and most glaring fault of this book is that it is printed in black and white. This is absurd given how important colors are to Scratch for understanding what palette certain blocks come from. It also makes comparing on-screen code to sample code extremely difficult and slow. Terrible, horrible decision to go cheap on the printing. Also, Jr. Jerry Lee Ford is not a computer scientist nor a professional programmer, rather he's more of an IT guy (nothing wrong with being an IT guy), and a serial book writer. 90 % of his titles are "... for the absolute beginner" thus indicating his lack of depth in any language other than maybe VB.The book is a very superficial exploration of the most basic of topics in scratch, more like he quickly reviewed the user's guide and found a quick sample to make a chapter out of as he chanced upon the topics. Clearly this man has little to no experience using Scratch, that is clear from his book. There is no more depth to this book than the user's guide and there's much better material on the web.A much more fun book is  Super Scratch Programming Adventure!: Learn to Program By Making Cool Games . A very CS deep way to learn scratch is using the BJC course available at the berkeley dot edu website, that comes with video tutorials and other materials. Also, instead of scratch, one should use BYOB/Snap!, which is a superset/extension of scratch, the Programming Adventure book is still relevant and useful with BYOB.I am teaching some elementary school kids classes on programming using the Programming Adventure book and it is useful for kids maybe 3-4th grade and up. For younger kids a more free-form approach is probably better as the book example code becomes quite complex. Probably the BJC course is what I'll end up migrating to but the book will be kept a a fun diversion and introduction to the skills.

I got this for my grandson for Christmas.....he really loves it! He has always said that he wants to develop computer games when he grows up, so when I saw this I thought it just might be the perfect book for him to try out some game programming.

Use at all ages! I used this book with my 6 year old, and although I did most of the reading, this book explains things clearly and it has good examples that he could understand. Does a great job of introducing all of the basic commands and ideas that Scratch has to offer. This doesn't cover advanced topics or complex programs, but sure serves its purpose.

Our 9 year old son was thrilled to get this book but was disappointed when he began to read it and discovered it was written several years ago for a prior 1.2.1 version of Scratch. The most current version of Scratch is 1.4 and there are some significant differences in the versions. I don't know how difficult it will be for our son to use the current 1.4 software with a book with old programming examples, but it's disappointing that the book doesn't sync with software that was released more than 3 years ago.

I was extremely excited when I found this book on amazon because I have enjoyed using scratch for projects in the past. I am in 6th grade and am an 11 year old girl. This book is surprisingly easy to understand and has many fun applications to create. I have already made a few, including a drawing and a quiz app. I recommend this book for anybody over ten years old, or who can understand the program quite well. At the beginning of the book, it goes over the VERY basics to learning the program, and what blocks do what. If you think you can't learn code just yet, this book is perfect for you. It's fun to draw characters and stages for your game/application, and the author does a really good job with explaining each little detail of the script. Scratch is a very easy but fun program for beginning scratchers. I would also check out the scratch website and you will find lots of examples and galleries about the program.

The book is just what I required. It has a thorough discussion of the theory behind how the various aspects of Scratch work but more importantly has plenty of practical examples that actually show Scratch at work.I enjoyed reading this book because it helps me to understand further.

great for 3rd grade and up

Initial Review essentially for users of the Mac OS X. The Macintosh computer is easy to use because it used to be said that all the programs you need are already there, but if you want to use Scratch it is a harder task to find it. I am not especially reviewing Scratch, which seems to be a Visual Programming language that is intended to make it easier for anyone to learn the simple principles of Computer Programming ( or Coding as it is now known ) in an easy flexible visual way, by using program commands that move sprites around the screen on a background in response to user input or pre-defined conditions.Young people in Primary or Junior School might find it particularly useful if they are able to use this at home since it is often used as part of the their KS1 or KS2 course, and school resources to run Scratch are possibly limited. Hopefully if they are able to follow the book through to the end they will be able to enjoy creating their own Scratch games and animations. They will also learn about computer paint programs. All of the required sprite editors are included. The resulting animations are limited only by their motivation, imagination and interest. For me this book is worth buying for the CDROM alone, which contains a Trial copy of Scratch 1.2.1. There are versions of the software to run on Mac OS X as well as on Microsoft Windows.What is the target audience for this book? Anyone who wants to learn Scratch and create their own simple games and animations and to learn a bit about computer programming on the way.The book takes you from installing the software on your computer ( On the Mac you might need additional information about loading programs from the CDROM ).There are 3 parts to this book.Part 1 Scratch Basics,Part 2 Learning How to Write Scratch Programs.Part 3 Advanced Topics, which includesChapter 13: Sharing Your Scratch Projects over the Internet.Chapter 14: Collecting External Input Using a Scratch BoardChapter 15: Finding and Fixing Program Errors.The book appears to cover everything that you would possibly need.

This book does what it says - It teaches you the basics of Scratch programming.The CD-ROM that comes with it includes all the programs and pictures that you need to carry out the exercises in the book.I worked through the whole book in a few hours, manually doing all the practical exercises in Scratch itself.(I was using an old G5 iMac, which confirms that Scratch is, indeed, a cross-platform program.)It did work - at the end I knew how to program some fun stuff in Scratch.My main criticisms are that it is too detailed and repetitious for students to use and yet does not provide enough programming theory for a teacher.Had I been so inclined I could, no doubt, have got to the same level in Scratch by searching through the resources on the Scratch website.As for a book for students, I would have liked to have seen some problems to solve, perhaps using a flow chart or two, to give more inspiration to students to build their own Scratch projects.For these reasons I give the book 3 stars.

This book was bought to allow me to get a head start on my grandchildren, I've bought a Raspberry Pi in order for them to have the experiences with computer programming that I had with a ZX 81 many moons ago. Scratch is an ideal starting point with block based programming. I used the book initially prior to giving it to the kids, its always good to hear them ask' how do we do this Grandad?'. The book is easy to read, well structured and delivers the right level of detail at the right time.My only concern is the price, its not as cheap as I'd hoped, as a Yorkshireman nothing is!The buying process was standard Amazon, click product, email confirmation and parcel arrives three days later, it works normally and this was no different!

I found the book very disappointing and the title misleading. It is Scratch for utter beginners and it adds very little to the online tutorials and help you can get from Scratch. I would recommend the free online Scratch-cards and Super Scratch Programming Adventures.

when i saw the item and its review in amazon it looked good. easy programming, it claimed.well, it does just that, but in a very limited way. will be great with young kids, but it is not forme. sorry.