Sherpa Anita 2/6: Flash and Scratch

Thank you, Mike, for passing on the blogging baton. Your post related to an article I read a few days ago, in the latest issue of Edutopia Magazine, that arrives via email and that I've been reading for a while. You may think the name Edutopia is kind of goony, but it is a pretty cool online publication (and Website) on education funded by George Lucas—and it's free; just sign up. And no lightsabers.

So, we've gotten from class and from all the posts and comments that, beyond reading and writing, there are specialized literacies for each of our disciplines. And then there's digital literacy.

This article, by Marc Prensky, is called "Programming: The New Literacy." I almost didn't read it, since from many failed attempts I know I am not good at code. But Prensky is talking about the same things we are in class. He writes: "I believe the single skill that will, above all others, distinguish a literate person is programming literacy, the ability to make digital technology do whatever, within the possible, one wants it to do—to bend digital technology to one's needs, purposes, and will, just as in the present we bend words and images. Some call this skill human-machine interaction; some call it procedural literacy. Others just call it programming."

Prensky goes on to give lots of examples of how simple programming is accessible to everyone and, like other authors we have read, points out that" "Today's kids already see their parents and teachers as the illiterate ones." Looking to the future, Prensky says: "Literacy will belong to those who can master not words, nor even multimedia, but a variety of powerful, expressive, human machine interactions."

If he's right, then I will have figure out some code. Yikes.

What do you think?

Oh, and he recommends Flash, a software from Adobe/Macromedia, and Scratch, a programming language from MIT, as ways to get into programming ourselves. And the Edutopia Website has some related links, including this one about video games that teach.

May the Force be with us!

And, I nominate Laura to be the next sherpa blogger.

Anita