In the TED video he presents Simon Peyton He explains that for a few years in education a lot of focus is placed on technology and little on ideas. The objective, according to Simon, is not only to consume technology but make children participate in how it works and for that we have to change the way children understand and assimilate abstract concepts making it fun. I really liked a video, which Simon includes in the presentation and that can be seen at 4:30 minutes from the beginning, in which students from New Zealand appear practicing a number sort algorithm. And they are seen how, each student carries a number and the algorithm tells them what they have to do when they are placed next to each other, basically sorted.
This way of learning reminds me of what Leontxo García always says he does Adriana Salazar in Colombia to teach children to play chess in which since they are little they move by diagonals, rows and columns and play while "doing chess." In this way, and returning to Simon, with the theatricalization of the sorting algorithm, the children learn concepts that will be useful to understand the cause and effect relationships.
The video is very intense and Simon Peyton explains it with great emphasis. He also talks about magic and the easy belief that simplifies everything and leaves no room for critical insight. Simon marks the methods of scientific knowledge as a mechanism to understand the world we live in, the digital world and also as a way to survive in an increasingly competitive environment.
And I end with a phrase of Steve Jobs, which also appears in the video, and that "everybody in this country should learn to program a computer, because it teaches you how to think" (everyone has to learn to program because it teaches to think).
Simon makes a very interesting presentation, there are subtitles on the YouTube channel to follow him, although you can see the presentation slides and where he uses the Comic Sans font format. We will have to be very attentive because it seems that in England they are going to take seriously this learning of programming in schools with political impulse, just to facilitate it, and a lot of commitment on the part of professional developers who will transmit experiences and knowledge to children.
