Mitchel Resnick about Scratch 3.0
Later this year a new version of Scratch - 3.0. is coming out. During the meeting with Belarusian teachers in the Hi-Tech Park on May 16, 2018 Mitchel Resnick gave them a sneak peek at Scratch 3.0.
What new features will Scratch 3.0 offer?
First of all, it'll work much better on mobile devices. The current version of Scratch was designed for laptops and desktops and it does not work well on mobile devices.
Mitchel Resnick: «You'd be able to create projects on tablets and you could run projects on your phone. In this way it can reach many more people».
Secondly, in Scratch 3.0 there's a new button that's called the extensions button - if you click that button you'll get a page which shows different collections of blocks you could add to Scratch. It's like if you want to connect to Lego Mindstorms there'll be a collection of blocks for using Scratch to control Lego Mindstorms or you’ll be able to work with Google to use some of their speech recognition technology.
Mitchel Resnick: «In everyday life children interact with technology through their voice so they should be able to create their own projects to respond to voice commands».
And, thirdly, the users of the new version will have wide opportunities of interactive cooperation with computer world by means of a special piece of hardware called the Scratch-bit. It enables you to control the objects on the screen by means of your gestures.
Mitchel Resnick: «The Scratch-bit could be used in many different ways - if you throw it in the air (it can detect when you're throwing) or you could put it on your body and start jumping (it can tell when you're jumping). So you can make a game that every time I jump the character jumps or as I'm moving the character moves…But I think our ultimate goal is to have kids growing up seeing themselves as creators».
More about Scratch 3.0 in our previews: