Seymour Papert (1928–2016)

This extraordinary book was written at least ten years before its time. When it was written, there was not the computing power to support the ideas and concepts in it.

When I initially wrote this review, both Minsky and Papert were still alive. Now they're both gone. The world is a smaller, poorer place without them.

Connectionism (later on termed neural networks) began here.

This book has some five star parts and some four star parts.

The five star parts are where Papert gets into the philosophy that drove the creation of LOGO - his thoughts about how learning occurs, why it's important to empower children to think about their own thinking, and his vision for a "learning society." It reads like a manifesto and goes so much past "hey, let's put computers in schools, it'll be great." He also showed me the power of thinking about environments as sources of "raw show more materials" for learning. There's certainly a lot more to chew on in these parts, and I need to think more and read it again.

The four star parts, for me, are anecdotes about how LOGO works towards reaching his goals. They're fun but not so inspirational. show less

Papert heralds the computer as a device that- though often misused by schools to maintain the current status quo- can give students the opportunity to learn to love often maligned subjects such as math, science, and computer science (as well as most any other so-called content area). Papert goes into detail on how he arrived at his conclusions and gives an excellent argument for "megachange" in our schools.

If you're interested in school reform or how technology can best be utilized in show more schools, then this is a definite must read. show less

After reading the intro, you'll think this was written in 2010 - not 1980! Why and how did these ideas get lost? Why don't school incorporate these ideas as we launch computer science to all US schools? "Why?," I ask.