By Daniel Leonard

In the 2006 article “Computer as Paintbrush: Technology, Play, and the Creative Society,” Mitchel Resnick, professor of learning research at MIT, argued that “computers will not live up to their potential until we start to think of them less like televisions and more like paintbrushes”—as tools with which to create, not merely to consume.

Nearly 20 years later, Resnick’s words still ring true. While we have the power to use devices to create imaginative works of art and scholarship, kids (and adults) spend much of their screen time passively scrolling through TikTok and Instagram feeds instead. The trend can be seen in the classroom too: Instead of having students harness the full creative potential of modern technology, many teachers primarily use it for things like Google Slides presentations, digital quizzes, and the occasional YouTube video.

Resnick isn’t thrilled by the average person’s relationship with technology, but he is optimistic about where we can go from here. An advocate of play-based learning, which he believes can be successfully implemented at all grade levels, Resnick leads a team called Lifelong Kindergarten, and he published a book of the same name in 2018. One of his team’s primary goals is to develop educational technologies that encourage creative, playful learning. In 2007, they released Scratch, a platform with over 100 million users that lets them create games and animations by dragging around simple building blocks of code.

I talked with Resnick about play-based learning at all ages and asked about his advice for teachers on helping students become active users of technology.