March 28, 2011
“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.
Seymour Papert
March 24, 2011
“Much of what the child learns we don’t even notice.” Papert, S. (1984). Computer as Mudpie. Intelligent Schoolhouse: Readings on Computers and Learning. D. Peterson. Reston, VA, Reston Publishing Company. Note: A higher-quality version of this article will be uploaded shortly.
March 21, 2011
“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)
March 10, 2011
“Many children who have trouble understanding mathematics also have a hopelessly deficient model of what mathematical understanding is like. Particularly bad are models which expect understanding to come in a flash, all at once, ready made. This binary model is expressed by the fact that the child will admit the existence of only two states
March 9, 2011
“But there is a world of difference between what computers can do and what society will choose to do with them”. Papert, S. (1981) Mindstorms: Children, Computers and Powerful Ideas. NY: Basic Books. Page 5. Quote contributed by Dr. Eleonora Badilla Saxe of the University of Costa Rica.
February 17, 2011
“Some sectors of human activity such as medicine, transportation and communications were transformed beyond recognition during the twentieth century. Compared with such megachange the practices of school have been virtually static. There are in principle two diametrically opposed visions of the role of new technologies in education. In one vision the technology is a means
February 10, 2011
DON’T: get hung up monitoring your kids’ every mouse click DO: begin to share their joyful experience of discovery Papert, S. (1995) The Parent Trap. Time Magazine. November 13, 1995. p. 34.
February 10, 2011
“Well, first thing you have to do is to give up the idea of curriculum. Curriculum meaning you have to learn this on a given day. Replace it by a system where you learn this where you need it. So that means we’re going to put kids in a position where they’re going to use
February 9, 2011
“The central issue of change in education is the tension between technicalizing and not technicalizing, and here the teacher occupies the fulcrum position.” “My paradoxical argument is that technology can support megachange in education as far-reaching as what we have seen in medicine, but it will do this through a process directly opposite to what
February 8, 2011
“It is not surprising that people rooted in schools’ concept of how learning should take place resist such restructuring. What is surprising is the logical distortion they resort to in order to persuade themselves that there are powerful objective reasons that make the transformation impossible.” Papert, S. (1996). Computers in the Classroom: Agents of Change.