Scratch/Lessons/Resources

There are a number of places that you can go to seek resources for use within Scratch projects that you can add to your projects.

Perhaps most useful is the resources that are automatically installed with Scratch. For simply learning about Scratch, there is enough variety to create most of the basic projects that will be explained in this textbook. Still, there may be some ideas for things that you would want to try which go beyond these basic examples.

Scratch Resources

The Scratch Team has created Scratch Resources. A site that allows scratch users to share their sprites, sounds, backgrounds and scripts with other scratch users.

Video Tutorials are available at http://learnscratch.org/.

Image Files

The following are some suggested URLs that you can use to obtain images:

• http://commons.wikimedia.org/ Wikimedia Commons - Has more than 1.5 million images and media files and the source of images within Wikimedia projects like Wikibooks and Wikipedia.

Image Manipulation Software

There are several image manipulation tools available to help create images or perhaps to modify some content that you have found elsewhere. These are some tools that you should consider on downloading or purchasing if you want to make some fine touch-ups on images before you import them into Scratch.

You should be aware that Scratch also has a simple image manipulation tool built into the design interface. This tool isn't that elaborate, and lacks some features that you would find in a full featured image manipulation tool, but it will take care of 90% of the issues you will have to deal with, and nearly everything that a child would want to do with an image.

• http://www.gimp.org/ GNU Image Manipulation Program (aka the GIMP) - Available for multiple operating systems and stable in nearly all of them, including Windows, Linux, and Mac OS/X. This is a "professional" level tool that would not be recommended for younger children, but it is a good tool to look at as an adult if you want to try some more bleeding edge image effects.

• http://www.inkscape.org/ Inkscape - A much easier tool that is designed more for image creation. This is mainly for the development of images saved in the "scaleable vector graphics" (*.svg) file format, however it can export images into the PNG file format, which can be read by Scratch. Again, this is a more professional tool, and can be used to make more "polished" styles of images than the default Scratch editor.

Sound FX

• http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/index.php Free Sound Project - Sound effects that are available under the same Creative Commons license that Scratch uses. You must become a "member" to download these sounds, but registration is free.