More Ice today

I am not just talking about the weather. Today I am back at the Ice Conference, the general session. First off was the keynote address, "Sowing the Seeds for a More Creative Society" by Mitch Resnick from the MIT Media Lab. The main idea was that our jobs are increasingly requiring workers to be more creative, to think and develop ideas and products not just performing the same repetitive task over and over again. One question is, are we teaching our students to be creative thinkers or are we still teaching them just information? Another key topic discussed was digital literacy. Maybe it was obvious but the point that struck me most was that we are good at teaching students how to be a good digital readers but we might not be so good at teach students to be good digital writers. So, another question is, how do we teach our students to become creators or writers of digital content?

Resnick's presentation was both informative and inspiring, it makes me think how can I help teachers help teach their students students to be more creative. His ideas to answering the above questions, his life long research, has manifested itself in the current form of a programing language called Scratch. Scratch looks to inspire people to be creative and publishers in a digital context. Its one idea. Ask me for more information or how we can explore this more together. The following links can help you get started.

Scratch Web Site

Tools you can buy that were developed at the MIT Media Group

Please comment to let me know what you think.