Mitchel Resnick is the LEGO Papert Professor of Learning Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab. In the late 1970s, after completing a degree in physics, Resnick worked as a science and technology correspondent for Business Week Magazine. While covering a conference on the emerging market for personal computers in 1982, he heard MIT Professor Seymour Papert deliver a keynote address on educational computing. Inspired by Papert, his constructionist learning theory, Logo educational computer programming language and enthusiasm for the potential that computers held for rethinking education, Resnick soon joined Papert at the MIT Media Lab. In 1992, he completed his doctorate at MIT, supervised by Papert and fellow computer scientist and educationalist Hal Abelson.

Over more than three decades at the MIT Media Lab, Resnick has explored and developed new technologies and activities to engage people (particularly children) in creative learning experiences. One of his early projects at MIT, working with Papert and Stephen Ocko in collaboration with engineers at the LEGO Corporation, involved creating a LEGO robotics controller (commercialised as Interface A), motor, light and sensor system that could be connected to LEGO technic bricks and programmed using Logo educational software. Resnick and MIT's collaboration with LEGO would later yield programmable LEGO bricks that were commercialised as LEGO Mindstorms in 1998. More recently, Resnick and his team at MIT developed the Scratch educational programming language as a descendent of Papert's Logo. Scratch makes it easy for children to create animated stories, video games, and interactive art and to connect with other users in an online community. It is used by millions of young people around the world.

In 1990, Resnick and MIT colleague Stephen Ocko travelled to Australia to contribute to the Sunrise School educational technology program initiated by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER). They worked with students and teachers at the Queensland Sunrise Centre (within the Coombabah State School) and the Methodist Ladies College (MLC) Sunrise Centre. As part of this visit, they took students from these Sunrise Centres to participate in a 'Logo and Robotics' pre-conference workshop as part of the World Conference on Computers in Education held in Sydney. The Sunrise Collection at Melbourne Museum contains a range of items related to the Sunrise School program.


References

Kahn, Alexandra (2021). Mitchel Resnick receives the 2021 LEGO Prize Award. https://www.media.mit.edu/posts/mitchel-resnick-receives-the-2021-lego-prize-award/ , published 13.10.2021, accessed 31.1.2024.

LEGO (2024). LEGO History, LEGO Education. https://www.lego.com/en-au/history/articles/g-lego-education , accessed 31.1.2024.

LEGO Foundation (2015). 30 years of collaboration empowering children to be creative thinkers. https://vimeo.com/143620419

MIT Media Lab (2024). Mitchel Resnick: LEGO Papert Professor of Learning Research. https://www.media.mit.edu/people/mres/overview/ , accessed 31.1.2024

Resnick, M., Ocko, S., & Papert, S. (1988). LEGO, Logo, and design. Children's Environments Quarterly, 5(4), 14-18.

Ryan, M (1991). The Queensland Sunrise Centre: A report of the first year. ACER.

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