The Computer Clubhouse program provides creative and safe out-of-school learning environments where young people from underserved communities work with adult mentors to explore their own ideas, develop new skills, and build confidence in themselves through the use of technology. The original Computer Clubhouse, the Flagship, was founded in 1993 by Mitchel Resnick and Natalie Rusk of the MIT Media Lab in Boston, USA and Stina Cooke of The Computer Museum, now part of the Museum of Science, Boston.
Fueled by an investment of over $50 million by Intel since the year 2000, the Intel Computer Clubhouse Network supports 100 Computer Clubhouses in 20 countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Jordan, Mexico, New Zealand, Palestine, Panama, Philippines, Russia, Taiwan, South Africa, and the United States.
Headquartered at the Museum of Science, Boston, the stated goal of the Intel Computer Clubhouse Network is “to proliferate the highly successful Clubhouse learning approach and establish it as a replicable model for technology learning.”
Clubhouses have been the proving ground for a number of projects of the MIT Media Lab's "Lifelong Kindergarten" research group. Notable examples are
- Scratch, an early 21st-century multimedia programming language for young people
- Lego Mindstorms programmable bricks, a late 20th-century robotic construction toy
- PICO programmable Crickets, early 21st-century programmable toys for art construction projects
- About the Clubhouse at computerclubhouse.org, retrieved on October 18, 2007.
- 1998, Resnick, M., Rusk, N., Cooke, S. "The Computer Clubhouse: Technological Fluency in the Inner City", published in: High Technology and Low-Income Communities edited by D. Schon, B. Sanyal, and W. Mitchell, MIT Press. Online version , retrieved on October 18, 2007.
- Computer Clubhouse at computerclubhouse.org, retrieved on February 1, 2009.
- 2004, Maloney, J., Burd, L., Kafai, Y., Rusk, N., Silverman, B. and Resnick, M., "Scratch: A Sneak Preview. Second International Conference on Creating, Connecting, and Collaborating through Computing, Kyoto, Japan, pp. 104-109. Online version retrieved on October 18, 2007.
- Business Week, Sep 7, 2006 "Invasion of the DIY Robots" by Jessie Scanlon. Online edition retrieved on October 18, 2007.
- MIT Spectrum, Winter 1998 "Smart Toys - Mitch Resnick builds a toy chest of learning tools". Retrieved on October 18, 2007.