“…for example, Larry Cuban, the hypercritic, the king of the criticism of computers – recently, and again, in an interview with the New York Times says, ~”Well, we didn’t ask for the kids to have these computers! But you’re fundamentally mistaken if you think it will change education.”~ Why? Well, he goes on to say there is no proof that it improves – that having laptop computers improves the scores on tests. Well, I’ve got two answers to that: A trivial answer is, it would if you gave it a chance – but I’m not going to get into that game. The more important thing is that that’s got nothing to do with whether it is going to be adopted or not be adopted. It’s going to be adopted because that’s the way we do things in our world. That’s the way we do knowledge work.”
Papert. S. (2006) Transcript of Seymour Papert’s Keynote Address at ICMI 17 Conference in Hanoi, Vietnam. December 4, 2006.
This speech was made right before Dr. Papert’s tragic accident in Hanoi in December, 2006 and represents his last public address.