I quite like Bret Victor and points he has made previously, but this seems entirely aimed at inspiring a flamewar. I'd love to have a discussion around this, but I don't feel that will happen due to the way the message was portrayed.
On that page, he literally takes a paragraph of text from each of the speakers and outputs a single sentence, extreme in interpretation. Code.org isn't just aiming at one person, so they represent multiple points of view. Parents want to know their children will be financially stable, politicians who can influence this at a higher level want to be able to say it will help the nation, and Bill Gates would likely be able to point you to literature showing that introduction to computing concepts at a young age would help understanding of certain topics. Surprise: none of these points can be properly conveyed in one paragraph.
I helped make an online learning tool used by thousands of students[1]. I'm tutoring at a computer science summer camp for high school students right now[2] (and have done so for six years). From all this, I've seen the impact that computer science and programming can have on students when correctly introduced. It is truly amazing. It is fundamentally changing. Even if this isn't applicable for all students, there is still a long and hard push to have this adopted more heavily in education.
On that page, he literally takes a paragraph of text from each of the speakers and outputs a single sentence, extreme in interpretation. Code.org isn't just aiming at one person, so they represent multiple points of view. Parents want to know their children will be financially stable, politicians who can influence this at a higher level want to be able to say it will help the nation, and Bill Gates would likely be able to point you to literature showing that introduction to computing concepts at a young age would help understanding of certain topics. Surprise: none of these points can be properly conveyed in one paragraph.
I helped make an online learning tool used by thousands of students[1]. I'm tutoring at a computer science summer camp for high school students right now[2] (and have done so for six years). From all this, I've seen the impact that computer science and programming can have on students when correctly introduced. It is truly amazing. It is fundamentally changing. Even if this isn't applicable for all students, there is still a long and hard push to have this adopted more heavily in education.
That is Code.org's fight.
[1]: https://groklearning.com/ [2]: http://ncss.edu.au/summer_school/index.html