MIT technology trailblazer is a critic of computerized learning
Mitchel Resnick is the LEGO Papert Professor of Learning Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the head of the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab. His research group is best known for inventing two blockbuster educational technologies: the programmable bricks used in the LEGO Mindstorms robotics kits and Scratch, a computer programming language that allows children to create and share interactive stories, games and animations. The Hechinger Report talked to him about whether technology is changing education for better or worse.
Question: Millions of kids around the world are using your simplified computer programming language, Scratch. I once read that Scratch accounts for 10 percent of all visits to MIT websites. What’s worked and what hasn’t?Answer: One of the reasons for Scratch’s success is that it’s really easy to mix together different animations, photographs and graphics. And you can share them in an online community and see what other people have created. In our mind, two of the most important aspects of any learning experience are creating and collaborating.
But the creating and the collaborating were in two separate worlds. You had to download the Scratch software and create on your own computer. Then, when you went online to the Scratch community