“Two fundamental ideas run through this book. The first is that it is possible to design computers so that learning to communicate with them can be a natural process, more like learning French by living in France than like trying to learn it through the unnatural process of American foreign-language instruction in classrooms. Second, learning …
“All of us, professionals as well as laymen, must consciously break the habits we bring to thinking about the computer. Computation is in its infancy. It is hard to think about computers of the future without projecting onto them the properties and the limitations of those we think we know today. And nowhere is this …
“Many children who grow up in our cities are surrounded by the artifacts of science but have good reason to see them as belonging to “the others”; in many case they are perceived as belonging to the social enemy. Still other obstacles are more abstract, though ultimately of the same nature. Most branches of the …
“Most writers emphasized using computers for games, entertainment, income tax, electronic mail, shopping, and banking. A few talked about the computer as a teaching machine. This book too poses the question of what will be done with personal computers, but in a very different way. I shall be talking about how computers may affect the …
“My proud father suggested “being clever” as an explanation. But I was painfully aware that some people who could not understand the differential could easily do things I found much more difficult. Slowly I began to formulate what I still consider the fundamental fact about learning: Anything is easy if you can assimilate it to …
“In many schools today, the phrase “computer-aided instruction” means making the computer teach the child. One might say the computer is being used to program the child. In my vision, the child programs the computer and, in doing so, both acquires a sense of mastery over a piece of the most modern and powerful technology …
”We’re moving into a time when people need to know how to learn things they weren’t taught in school. Second, we now have the technology to let kids learn better. This will not just allow them to learn the same things better; it will teach kids to learn radical new things at all ages.” – …
Could there be a better way to do something productive during the Covid-19 shutdown than to help DailyPapert.com? Better yet, you get to read some of Seymour Papert’s work and share it with the world! The site will undergo repairs and a bit of redesign during this unforeseen global emergency, but your assistance is required …
“When people claim that my vision of education does away with teachers, I get very upset. That turns on its head what I’ve been trying to say. Schools give teachers very little opportunity to teach. They spend most of their time brainwashing or forcing children to do rote activities nobody believes in. In the kind of learning environment I envision, teachers can really teach.” Greth, C. V. (2983). Seymour Papert on Education and Language. Atari Connection (Fall 1983), 22-25. Retrieved from https://ia801708.us.archive.org/9/items/Atari_Connection_Volume_3_Number_3_1983-09_Atari_US/Atari_Connection_Volume_3_Number_3_1983-09_Atari_US_text.pdf
Curator’s Note: Melody Ayres-Griffiths, Editor of Paleotronic Magazine, recently sent me a link to this obscure 1983 Seymour Papert interview found at the Internet Archive (full issue). The issue followed a predictable storyline from that era – debate Logo vs. BASIC. Another old friend of mine, Arthur Luhrmann, was setup in a virtual debate with …