Sounds and Graphics

The Lifelong Learning Group at MIT used their experience of running computer clubs for young people to design Scratch as a multimedia programming environment because they knew that children love to incorporate graphics and sound into their applications (unfortunately Scratch does not support video).

Scratch makes it easy to import sounds and graphics into your application to use as effects or to create a complete multimedia presentation on your computer. This lesson shows children how to use the sounds and images provided with Scratch to create an interactive application which responds to the user clicking around the environment.

Children can express their creativity and personality by including their own images and sounds in an application. They might simply add sound recordings to each sprite or include a photograph which they can annotate with sound. They might import a photograph of the class and add recordings from their classmates that are played when the user clicks on the individual in the photograph.

These techniques are used to create interactive multimedia applications (with sound) which can become quite complex when combined with sprites and changing backgrounds. Children can create very sophisticated applications using their favourite music downloaded from an MP3 player and their own photographs. This type of application can be used to illustrate a topic from the classroom or to create an interactive quiz or storyboard and is another favourite for some children.