June 6, 2012

“So there’s not much more you can do to improve things. Where you can make a big step forward and I’m seeing this as my mission to try to be with people and get a handle on people ready to make that jump and say “We’re not trying to improve that thing, we’re trying to [...]

June 5, 2012

“What is our fight really about? My reference to the Soviet Union comes from recognizing events there, not only as the most significant process of radical change in the world today, but also as one whose central issues are closely related to those that will dominate any deep change in education. What has happened in [...]

May 24, 2012

“Skeptics of the possibility of change in schools often recall that it is now a hundred years since the American philosopher and educator John Dewey wrote his persuasive books criticizing the way schools teach and proposing the new methods that became known as progressive education. Nobody has refuted Dewey or proved him wrong-in fact nobody [...]

May 3, 2012

“Discussing laptops with local teachers reminded of my encounter in Thailand with Mr. Condom. His real name is Meechai, but he proudly accepts the nickname given in honor of his work teaching villagers in remote areas to use condoms. Statistics show that he has contributed significantly to keeping birth rate and sexually transmitted diseases under [...]

April 25, 2012

“They first learn engineering, then from there they progress to learning the ideas behind it, and then they learn the mathematics. This would be inventing, it’s a little probe toward inventing a different kind of content. It’s not a different way of teaching; it’s not pedagogy. It’s different knowledge. It’s a good example of turning [...]

April 23, 2012

“Jean Piaget’s very strong idea that all learning takes place by discovery is emasculated by its translation into the common practice known in schools as ‘discovery learning.’” Papert, S. (2000). What’s the big idea? Steps toward a pedagogy of Idea Power. IBM Systems Journal, vol. 39, no. 3-4. Tweet This Post

April 19, 2012

“Why then should computers in schools be confined to computing the sum of the squares of the first twenty odd numbers and similar so-called ‘problem-solving’ uses? Why not use them to produce some action? There is no better reason than the intellectual timidity of the computers in education movement, which seems remarkably reluctant to use [...]

March 28, 2012

“I do not suppose that all children were ever given full access to the ideas of any society. But at least in times of slower change, an equilibrium could be maintained between what society needed its members to know and the learning opportunities it offered (deliberately or mostly not) to its children. Since there is [...]

February 16, 2012

“Nineteenth century researchers seeking to improve transportation stumble on the idea of a jet engine and propose to use it to augment the power of horses pulling stage coaches. Researchers of a rival school ridicule the idea of using technology to solve the problem and suggest that the better way is to train the coachmen. [...]

February 15, 2012

“In the end, I think computers are inherently subversive, even though they are captured by the system and tamed. But the potential is still there for them to be used in other ways.” Papert, S. (1994) in David Hill’s article, Professor Papert and his Learning Machine. Education Week Teacher. January 1, 1994. Tweet This Post