Italian Scratch Festival

This paper illustrates the experience of the Italian Scratch Festival organized by the Association Dschola in 2012 and 2013. The idea of promoting with a contest the use of a programing language like Scratch for the teaching of computer technology during the first two years of technical institutions, results from a process that began some years ago within the Association following the reform of upper secondary schools. The simplicity and directness of the Scratch language, along with the inclusion of multimedia, make it a good tool to motivate students to learn the basics of programming.