“We better recognize that laptop is just a little step in the progress towards the shift from the medium of paper, the primacy of paper-based static media to the primacy of electronic digital media, that’s going to come, it’s going to sweep the world, it’s going to change what we think we can know, how …
“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 …
“Q: But there are statistics to show that in most cases technology in schools doesn’t work. A: The statisticians ask a silly question and get a silly answer. Of course “technology doesn’t work.” Technology doesn’t do anything. People do. Statistics that lump together technology implementations across the board — averaging the good with the bad …
“And I really am worried about the fact that we are undermining mathematical rigor, in fact we are undermining all rigor, by emphasizing the engagement side of what this computer can contribute to education, and we have to do something about this or it’s going to kick back at us.” Papert, S. (2004) Keynote address …
Educators should “start clearing their heads about notions that computers are expensive. Every child should have a computer like an Apple II.” Mr. Papert noted that New York City schools spend more than $30,000 on a student over the course of his 13 years of public schooling. If the computer were priced at its manufacturing …
“Rationality is a force for the good.” Papert, S. (2007) Seymour Papert Interview – One Laptop per Child (OLPC). Cambridge, MA: One Laptop Per Child Foundation. YouTube video.
“Every deep thinker who has looked at our education system, and I think of everyone, from Voltaire, Rousseau, Piaget, Vygostgy, John Dewey, they’ve all focused on one point, that our school is much too focused on information, on getting facts, far to little on doing things, on learning by doing, by action.” Papert, S. (2004) …
“…Only inertia and prejudice, not economics or lack of good educational ideas stand in the way of providing every child in the world with the kinds of experience of which we have tried to give you some glimpses. If every child were to be given access to a computer, computers would be cheap enough for …
“NCTM [National Council of Teachers of Mathematics] has not yet understood the role of computers. NCTM still belongs to maybe the 20th century, if not long before. I think they call it totally wrong. I think that the reason why there is a conflict between creative thinking, and basic mathematics is that they try to …