"I have been using Scratch, a drag and drop programming language developed by researchers at MIT, since November 2007. I am quite excited about its potential for teaching other skills besides programming.
I have set up this wiki to build-up a course for beginner programmers."
Instructables is a web-based documentation platform where passionate people share what they do and how they do it, and learn from and collaborate with others. The seeds of Instructables germinated at the MIT Media Lab as the future founders of Squid Labs built places to share their projects and help others.
"anyone anywhere to take M.I.T. courses online free of charge - and for the first time earn official certificates for demonstrating mastery of the subjects taught. "
"A high quality education doesn't have to come at a high cost. In fact, it's possible to take classes from big names like Yale, MIT, and Tufts without ever subMITting an application or paying a cent in tuition. We've compiled 200 online classes from these and other respected institutions, and you can take all of them with no strings attached."
This video lasts about 51 minutes. But, show this to your students. It starts out slowly (although still very cool, IMO) but this guy is amazing, as is his work.
Siftables, the toy blocks that think: David Merrill on TED.com
In the latest release from TED2009, MIT grad student David
Merrill demos Siftables -- cookie-sized, computerized tiles you can stack and shuffle in your hands. These future-toys
can do math, play music, and talk to their friends, too. (Recorded in 2009 in Monterey, California. Duration:
7:09.)
Welcome to the distribution center for BYOB (Build Your Own Blocks), an advanced offshoot of Scratch, a visual programming language primarily for kids from the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. This version, developed by Jens Mönig with design input and documentation from Brian Harvey, is an attempt to extend the brilliant accessibility of Scratch to somewhat older users-in particular, non-CS-major computer science students-without becoming inaccessible to its original audience. BYOB 3 adds first class lists, sprites, and procedures to BYOB's original contribution of custom blocks and recursion.