Google Wants Google Doodles Taught In Public School, Warns Kids They Best Behave

theodp writes: Well, this year's Hour of Code is almost upon us, and if Google has its way, K-12 schoolchildren across the nation will be learning computer science by creating Google Doodles with Scratch (lesson plan). Curiously, the introductory video for the Create Your Own Google Logo Hour of Code activity from the Google Computer Science Education Department sternly warns kids, "While it is okay to use the Google logo for your personal Doodle, it is not okay [emphasis Google's] to use it anyplace else or outside this activity." In addition to respecting its intellectual property, Google instructs kids that they are to follow the Scratch Community Guidelines when they create Google logos: "Please stay positive, friendly, and supportive towards others in the Scratch Community. Help us keep Scratch a place where people of different backgrounds and interests feel welcome to hang out and create together."

Comments

Re:Needs to Stop

[apoc.famine]

What you're arguing is that it's better to learn many unrelated short-term skills than it is to learn a number of skills that in aggregate provide better access to more complicated material in the future. It's pretty classic short-term thinking.

I get that you're angry because you don't understand it. I'm a little unclear why you want to hate Common Core so badly that you're unwilling to even try to understand it.

See this part that you wrote:

more important than figuring out the correct answer.

That's wrong. That's you making up in your head what the lesson is, because you don't understand the real lesson. You don't understand the goal.

The goal was never to get the correct answer. The goal was to teach the student a fundational skill they will build on in later grades.

You're making up a problem that doesn't exist by creating this scenario in your head where a boogieman is forcing kids to "use approved versions" to solve trivial tasks. That's not what's happening. That's you trying to wedge your experience in math into what the common core is doing. If you take some time to try to actually understand it. you'll likely be surprised to find that it's nothing like you imagine it to be.

Yes, things that you don't understand are scary. The solution isn't to bitch and moan on the internet about them. The solution is to learn about them, so they are less scary.