“Geraldine Doogue: What I’m curious about then is out of this fascinating time working with Jean Piaget – who developed that whole notion of the stages of development for children – how would digital technology fit in to what you learned then? Because you’re a great advocate for digital technology being used to help children make leaps in their own intelligence. How does it?
Seymour Papert: There are two connections and one, I think, is maybe less relevant but it was historically more important and that was digital models lead to a possibility of making a theoretical model of what goes on in children’s thinking. Now, the other side that’s related but in practice really quite different, has to do with the flexibility of digital intelligence in providing kids with things to do and I think that…Piaget, among others, had always criticised our education system because it’s more telling kids things and less learning by doing. The real learning happens by doing and so…”
Link to listen to Seymour Papert interviewed by Geraldine Doogue
Papert, S. (2004) Interview with Geraldine Doogue for the Australian Broadcasting Coporation’s Program, Sunday Profile. Transcript on the Web here.