Why Scratch was the Best Tech Activity of the Year

A brief post for today:

Yesterday my Grade 5 tech class worked with Scratch.  The excitement in the room was palpable; the level of learning was high enough to warrant the children calling the class “fun”.  With some professional reflection, this is why I think we had such success:

1)      The children were allowed to ‘open-source’ learn.  I was not the expert in the room – instead, there was hours of Youtube, peers with more experience than me, and miles of blogs.
2)      We learned together.  When a design issue popped up, the entire classroom worked to find a solution.  In this way, we found multiple solutions and learned more than we ever would have in the traditional ‘delivery of knowledge’ method of teaching.
3)      The games they created were of their own design.  Nobody likes to be told what to do.  That said, there are some students who have been so transformed by the school system that they don’t know what to do unless told.  For them, there were some general guidelines.

The conclusion: Make as many classes as possible ‘open-source’, work collaboratively to solve problems, and respect the individual’s inherent genius.

Does this sound like the Google office to anyone else?  I wonder why that company has achieved such success?