The programming skill that is most critically needed is, hold your breath, StarBasic (or any Visual Basic equivalent that works with OpenOffice.org).
I completely disagree.
The programming skill that is most critically needed is: The one that gets programmers started along the right track most easily.
The exact language is immaterial. The language du jour will change many times (and I don't think starbasic will ever be one of them), but that doesn't matter, because a programmers can learn programming languages a lot more easily than they can learn programming concepts.
I'm sure your goals of getting more open office support are important, but if you teach teachers to teach a better programming language and they in turn get more children hooked on programming, they will be programming long after starbasic and openoffice and MS office (and MS) fade from prominance.
Wayne
Tim Newsham http://www.lava.net/~newsham/
