Mitchel Resnick
Mitchel Resnick
Mitchel Resnickis LEGO Papert Professor of Learning Research, Director of the Okawa Center, and Director of the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab. Resnick currently serves as the head of the Media Arts and Sciences academic program, the academic program that grants master's degrees and Ph.Ds at the MIT Media Lab. Resnick's research group has developed a variety of educational tools that engage people in new types of design activities and learning experiences, including the "programmable bricks" that...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEducator
CountryUnited States of America
Working as a correspondent for 'Business Week,' I felt that I was simply informing people, not empowering them. I saw a parallel problem in the world of education. In too many educational settings, teachers simply 'inform' or 'instruct' learners, rather than providing learners with opportunities to explore, experiment, and express themselves.
As I see it, whoever's doing the inventing is also doing most of the learning - and probably having most of the fun.
When you learn to code, it opens up for you to learn many other things.
With 'Scratch,' you create computer programs by snapping together graphical programming blocks, much like LEGO bricks, without any of the obscure syntax and punctuation of traditional programming languages. After creating an interactive 'Scratch' project, you can share it on the 'Scratch' website, just as you would share videos on YouTube.
When you become fluent with language, it means you can write an entry in your journal or tell a joke to someone or write a letter to a friend. And it's similar with new technologies.