Welcome! Venite...Studete...Discite is the Professional Development Committee blog for Blair Academy. We hope that the blog will serve as a valuable professional development resource for all members of the Blair Academy faculty & staff and foster discussion, exploration, disagreement, collaboration, and most importantly, help each member of the Blair Faculty grow professionally and help us all serve our students better both inside and outside of the classroom.
Friday, February 1, 2013
Scratch
Take a look at this TED talk by Mitch Resnick, whose team at MIT
developed Scratch. It is interesting to think about how this sort of
literacy may enter the curriculum.
I think I would be scared to death to be an elementary school
teacher. When I think about it, that group is really going to be
driving the skill development of our future students. So, this ted
talk speaks to something I have always wondered about... the gap
between what we do with technology and what we know about how it is
constructed.
At the same time, I am suspicious. Is the knowledge of coding even
necessary? Interested in hearing what people think...
I don't know if there is need to code, but the skills that Scratch incorporates are useful in all areas, just as he notes that reading and writing are useful even if you're not going to become a professional writer. I agree with CCB that in many ways it seems that elementary education has the most movement and innovation, perhaps because it's easier to do simpler applications like the ones on Scratch. I'm still waiting for the computer game that allows kids to create counter-factual historical simulations or the like.
Thanks for pointing this one out Carolyn. I might just go play around with Scratch right now.
Considerable discussion on this topic. There continue to be those who feel that the world will be dependent upon an emerging class of technologists who know how to code.
I don't know if there is need to code, but the skills that Scratch incorporates are useful in all areas, just as he notes that reading and writing are useful even if you're not going to become a professional writer. I agree with CCB that in many ways it seems that elementary education has the most movement and innovation, perhaps because it's easier to do simpler applications like the ones on Scratch. I'm still waiting for the computer game that allows kids to create counter-factual historical simulations or the like.
ReplyDeleteThanks for pointing this one out Carolyn. I might just go play around with Scratch right now.
Considerable discussion on this topic. There continue to be those who
ReplyDeletefeel that the world will be dependent upon an emerging class of
technologists who know how to code.
http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/programming-ability-is-the-new-di
gital-divide-berners-lee
S. Adams