I am interested in Scratch, a tool for teaching reasoning and programming that MIT published last July. It is very similar to the Logo computer language that I have been using in my books, also developed at MIT but 40 years previously.
Scratch uses drag-and-drop rather than typing in commands, so it's easier to use. It is quite sophisticated, although not currently as sophisticated as MicroWorlds Logo, which I am using in my curriculums. (Specificially, MicroWorlds has functions and Scratch doesn't.)
Scratch leads right into the Java computer language. In both of them, the programming revolves around objects that are passed back and forth by programs. What's an object?? In Scratch, you can see it. It's a cat, or whatever.
One of the great things about Scratch is its price tag. It's free.
I've created a free lesson about how to use Scratch. You can get it here.
