The DailyPapert.com rarely editorializes. The point of this site is to bring the words, wisdom and powerful ideas of Dr. Seymour Papert (bio here) to educators, policy-makers and citizens concerned. Although Papert made pioneering contributions to the worlds of epistemology, mathematics, artificial intelligence, computer science, educational gaming, learning and school reform, he receives too little […]
“I believe, in principle, that software should be distributed as a free resource; on the other hand, it costs money to develop software. I have a huge conflict with Logo. I’d like to give it away. But unless a gold mine is found, we’d have no money to support new development.” Papert, S. (1984) “The
“And at the same time that this massive penetration of the technology is taking place, there is a social movement afoot with great relevance for the politics of education. There is an increasing disillusion with traditional education. Some people express this by extreme action, actually withdrawing their children from schools and choosing to educate them
“I have described myself as an educational utopian — not because I have projected a future of education in which children are surrounded by high technology, but because I believe that certain uses of very powerful computational technology and computational ideas can provide children with new possibilities for learning, thinking, and growing emotionally as well
“My vision of a new kind of learning environment demands free contact between children and computers. This could happen because the child’s family buys one or a child’s friends have one. For purposes of discussion here (and to extend our discussion to all social groups) let us assume that it happens because schools give every
September 29, 2011 Read More »
“But throwing out entrenched, misleading ideas and providing children with open access to computers is not enough in itself. We also need a whole new set of concepts and paradigms for studying the learning process in this burgeoning computer age. What I am saying about computers is no doubt true about other materials and other
September 28, 2011 Read More »
“School as we set it up is tailor-made for certain personality types. I like to think of certain scales of oppositions: like obsessional-compulsives and hysterics. This is a little over-simplified. but will help us talk quickly. Our hyperactive child is toward the extreme end of the hysteric scale. The hysteric likes generalities, likes dramatic effects,
September 21, 2011 Read More »
There won’t be schools in the future…. I think the computer will blow up the school. That is, the school defined as something where there are classes, teachers running exams, people structured in groups by age, following a curriculum-all of that. The whole system is based on a set of structural concepts that are incompatible
September 13, 2011 Read More »
“I think it’s better to put 100 computers in one percent of the schools than one computer in 100 percent of the schools.” Seymour Papert in Sullivan, N. (1984 ) “Seymour Papert, the Inventor of Logo has a Lot of Interesting Ideas” [interview]. Family PC Magazine. February 1984. Volume 2. Number 2. pp 70.
September 12, 2011 Read More »
“No two people follow the same path of learnings, discoveries, and revelations. You learn in the deepest way when something happens that makes you fall in love with a particular piece of knowledge.” Papert, S. (1987) “MicroWorlds: Transforming Education.” In Lawler, R. Artificial Intelligence and Education: Volume One – learning environments and tutoring systems. Norwood,