Mitchel Resnick — American Educator

Mitchel Resnick is 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 were the basis for the award-winning LEGO Mindstorms and StarLogo software. He co-founded the Computer Clubhouse, an award-winning network of learning centers for youth from under-served communities. Resnick is also a co-founder and a co-principal investigator of the Center for Civic Media. at MIT... (wikipedia)

When you learn to read and write, it opens up opportunities for you to learn so many other things. When you learn to read, you can then read to learn. And it's the same thing with coding. If you learn to code, you can code to learn. Now some of the things you can learn are sort of obvious. You learn more about how computers work.
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.
Our society expects that everyone should learn to write, even though very few become professional writers. Similarly, I think that everyone should learn how to program, even though very few will become professional programmers.
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.
I became interested in educational technologies because I believe that they have the potential to transform how we practice and think about education and learning.