Open-ended play

  • Does open-ended play with coding count?  … Like Dance Party.
  • Are maker-spaces open-ended play?

STEM toys promise to turn kids into tech geniuses. Grown-up coders are skeptical:

“The type of toy that you give your kid matters far less than how they interact with it, or with the world, or with you,” said Joe Morgan, a JavaScript developer in Kansas who is skeptical of the value of teaching kids to code. “You cannot boil down things like creativity into a single item. It’s a lifelong process that they have to explore, and no one toy can do that.”

Morgan said he believes that open-ended play and exploration — especially the experience of taking things apart and putting them back together — are more important for early development of the skills that might help them become creative, nimble-minded technologists.