[sf-lug] Scratch programming app for kids for Linux

[Christian Einfeldt]

Hi,

Just a little background on what Mike Chow is teaching the kids.  He is
showing the kids how to think sequentially and analytically with programming
in Scratch.  Scratch is a programming application that features Scratch, a
cat, as your hero.  You can make Scratch walk around on the screen, get
bigger, put on costumes, and a bunch of other stuff.  Mike also uses Scratch
to help children understand the X, Y, and Z dimensions in geometry, because
as Scratch walks around the grid, the children come to understand what it
means for Scratch to go over two units, down three units, and back four
units (or whatever else they tell Scratch to do.

For 6 years now, we have been looking for a teacher with a computer science
background to teach kids programming.  It looks like we now have that person
in the form of Mike Chow.  I am extremely excited to see Mike Chow take an
interest in programming.  Programming is one of the things that Linux
machines do best of all, and so I am really really happy that Mike Chow is
doing a great job of integrating programming into the real lives of these
kids and making programming come alive and be relevant for them.

Thanks again to Jim Stockford and Elizabeth Krumbach for helping me help
this teacher.  I was really at an impasse, and Jim and Elizabeth solved it
quickly for me!  It is a wonderful experience for me to have this kind of
support from such nice people.  :-)
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