Mitchel Resnick Quotations

Computer programming has been traditionally seen as something that is beyond most people - it's only for a special group with technical expertise and experience. We have developed 'Scratch' as a new type of programming language, which is much more accessible.

For me, the most important and distinguishing property of new media is interactivity. But how many people can actually create interactive games, animations, or simulations? Not very many. So, in my mind, very few people are truly literate with new media.

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 learn to code, it opens up for you to learn many other things.

Working as a correspondent for 'Business Week,' I felt that I was simply informing people, not empowering them. I saw a parallel problem in the world of education. In too many educational settings, teachers simply 'inform' or 'instruct' learners, rather than providing learners with opportunities to explore, experiment, and express themselves.

What I like to say is that we're trying to develop a new generation of technologies that are worthy of the next generation of kids.

As I see it, whoever's doing the inventing is also doing most of the learning - and probably having most of the fun.

I started my career as a journalist, writing about science and technology for 'Business Week' magazine. Then I decided to make a career shift. I went to graduate school in computer science, and I began developing educational technologies - in particular, technologies to engage children in creative learning experiences.

Express your ideas with the world

With Scratch, we want to let kids to be the creators. We want them to create interesting, dynamic things on the computer.