Marc Prensky (the guy who popularized the phrases "digital natives" and "digital immigrants") has loads of provocative items on his website. Here's a link to a new article of his from Edutopia (an online forum sponsored through the generosity of filmmaker George Lucas):
Programming: The New Literacy
So, what do you think? Is programming where we're headed next?
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2 comments:
I'm still up in the air about how much people will need to know about this in the future.
I got into html kinda late in the game when my sister persuaded me to do a MySpace page and I started figuring out how the different "pimp my page" sites did their thing. If learning how to use a programming language results in something cool they can show off, I think kids will get into it. But on the other hand, there will always be those "pimp my page" sites that do most of it for you.
On the other hand, I bookmarked this a while back for the day (someday!) that I can put down my homework and go get some books for other professional development:
Under the Hood of Web 2.0: the top ten programming concepts for librarians to understand
by Ryan Deschamps
As one who has programmed a lot (I spent 3 semesters as a computer science major in college and 2 years programming in high school), I really don't think that society as a whole will learn programming languages.
Here's why: programming is ANNOYING! It has a specific "grammar" and syntax that does not tolerate mistakes or typos. One missing comma or period and the whole program fails. If you miss a comma in the essay you turn in for class, your teacher might not even notice it, but the computer would. Based on what I've seen out there, a lot of people have trouble with English grammar, and that is a language they speak and read everyday. Programming is not, and it takes time and effort to learn it and learn it well.
Perhaps someone will invent a program to to make programming easier, and then people will do it. :)
p.s. I had more to say, but Blogger ate my previous comment because of maintenance, and I couldn't remember everything I said!
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