Programming Literacy for 21st Century Learners

Rick Bolander, who currently serves as managing partner with Bay Area-based Gabriel Venture Partners, has worked with numerous start-up corporations with technology-centered business models. His client list has included Chegg, Netscaler, and Kajeet, Inc. Deeply committed to demonstrating the positive social aspects of disruptive technology, Rick Bolander understands the importance of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) literacy for today’s students.

Recently, many educators have focused attention on multimedia literacy, the skills associated with understanding and manipulating virtual, aural, visual, and physical components to express ideas and create original content. Experts predict that these abilities, as well as the skills associated with interactive devices such as those found in computer gaming, will play a major role in personal and career success in coming decades.

Some commentators in the field have even extended the concept to include programming, the ability to create logical and comprehensive instructions for digital technology applications, as the key “literacy” for today’s generation. These experts believe that, just as reading and writing defined literacy for previous generations, future generations will consider the ability to program a primary type of literacy.

Many of today’s young people are already learning math and logic skills associated with programming through various in-school and extracurricular activities. Scratch, a program conceived at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab, develops the visual programming skills needed to create animated characters and stories. Lego’s Mindstorms kits combine the popular building set with robotics through the use of command-box programming, and the Arduino is a simple introduction to open-source electronics programming using a language analogous to C++.