Written by: Casey Miles

In the last couple of years there’s been a noticeable push for developing programming and computer science skills in childhood education. In a blog post on MiddleWeb: All About the Middle Grades, Mark Gerl, writes about his experience at Computer Science Education Week. His post gets at the interconnectedness of programming languages, gaming, and student writing, through the importance of storytelling. He writes, “What makes a great game so engaging is that it tells a fantastic story.” Gerl clearly sees the powerful relationship between the digital and the cultural: “We will need programmers and inventors, engineers and scientists to create these bold new frontiers. We will also need writers, poets, artists and dreamers to imagine those worlds first.”