“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. […]
“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.
“Thus in its embodiment as the physical computer, computation opens a vast universe of things to do. But the real magic comes when this is combined with the conceptual power of theoretical ideas associated with computation.” Papert S. (1980). Teaching Children Thinking in Taylor, R., Ed., The Computer in School: Tutor, Tool, Tutee. New York:
“If I think in terms of my three books on this subject, when Mindstorms was written there were barely any computers in schools. Throughout the 1980s many schools got in the act, acquiring computers. The most important phenomenon I understood at that time was the power of school, as an institution, to assimilate anything new
“The computer greatly expands what is in the culture of the child’s life. What the computer does is to make it possible for natural learning, which really means learning without teaching, without being taught, to be extended [exposed] to a much greater range of knowledge. I think we see when kids learn by themselves, to
“My first reaction to Tinkering Towards Utopia was adversarial. I am convinced that education will undergo the kind of megachange that came in the wake of technological and scientific developments in areas such as medicine. Yet as Koschmann pointed out in the introduction to this section, although Tyack and Cuban present their work as analysis
“Imagine a society in which there were schools, but writing had not yet been invented, so there are no books and there are no pencils. People teach verbally and they learn by listening. It’s possible. One day somebody invents writing, and they invent the pencil. Somebody says, “Wow, this would be great for education, it
“In New York City there is a growing number of classrooms, I believe nearly fifty now, where future and past seem to meet. In the front a chalkboard: a teacher talking, perhaps about sentences, perhaps about ratios, in the middle desks: children sitting, some listening, some dreaming. Familiar. At the back something different. Two computers
“How do we make writing become hard fun? One way is to develop for kids “writable” activities that they love to do. The building of robotic devices acquires “writability” because it lends itself to stage-by-stage description. Its writability is further enhanced by the use of word processors and digital cameras. But beyond technology there is
“People often congratulate me for making such a good language for children. But they are wrong. Logo isn’t a “good language for children”–in fact, a language that was “good for children” in this limited sense would not be good for children. Children deserve a language that is good, period. Logo is only good for children