Scratch saves its finished files in its own .SB format, but users can upload their finished products to the Scratch home page with the click of a button, a very Web 2.0 addition.

Learn programming with Scratch on a Mac Don’t be fooled into underestimating Scratch. The blocks are similar to commands you’ll find in programming languages.

Scratch is a “sprite” based system. In this case sprites are objects that have as attributes one or more visual images called “costumes”, one or more sound samples, and one or more scripts.

On Tuesday, Lego Education introduced SPIKE Prime, a new robotics kit to teach middle school students how to code. It's up for preorder now for about $330, and shipping in August.