Mitch Resnick

The 5th international conference on Scratch will be opened by Mitch Resnick and Karen Brennan. Following is a quote from Mitch Resnicks essay "Learning to code, code to learn." 

(...) The recent surge of interest in learning to code, reflected in sites like codecademy.com and code.org, has focused especially on job and career opportunities. It is easy to understand why: the number of jobs for programmers and computer scientists is growing rapidly, with demand far outpacing supply.

But I see much deeper and broader reasons for learning to code. In the process of learning to code, people learn many other things. They are not just learning to code, they are coding to learn. In addition to learning mathematical and computational ideas (such as variables and conditionals), they are also learning strategies for solving problems, designing projects, and communicating ideas. These skills useful not just for computer scientists but for everyone, regardless of age, background, interests, or occupation. (...)

Read the full article at edSurge.