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Seymour Papert has died

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Re: Seymour Papert has died

#41

Post by ontouchstart »

ontouchstart wrote: post #15

https://www.c-span.org/video/?67583-1/technology-education Technology In Education The committee examined technological advances in education. OCTOBER 12, 1995 Alan Brown Superintendent Public Schools Chris Dede Professor George Mason University Jeffrey Joseph Vice President U.S. Chamber of Commerce->Domestic Policy Alan Kay Fellow Apple Computer->Learning Concepts Cheryl Lemke Associate Superintendent Illinois->Boar…

This is a long 1995 congress hearing video that I doubt many people have time and patience to sit through. But if you fast forward to the debate between D.E. Shaw and Seymour Papert/Alan Kay, you will find out 20 years later, the hardware progress is almost exactly as Shaw had predicted, on the other hand, we are far from the vision of Seymour Papert and Alan Kay.

Re: Seymour Papert has died

#42

Post by reuven »

I had the honor of meeting Seymour Papert on a few occasions (there's no way that he would have remembered me), and coming away awestruck and inspired each time.

I also read his books and papers, and did a PhD with one of his best-known students, and never failed to come away thorough amazed by his vision, his dedication, and his ability to execute on so much of that -- partly through great research, partly through great execution on his own, and partly through inspiring generations of students of all ages and backgrounds.

Indeed, my PhD research was driven by my interest in pushing Papert's vision one step closer to reality. And my work training at companies around the world constantly tries to make things more constructionist, more exploratory, and thus better for my students.

If you haven't yet read Mindstorms, you should. You might think that it's a book about using Logo to teach kids, but it's not. Rather, it's a book about how children think and learn, and about how to encourage them to think and learn.

It's terribly sad that Papert has passed away, but his vision and ideas live on amount countless people who are better thinkers and educators as a result.

Re: Seymour Papert has died

#43

Post by agumonkey »

agumonkey wrote: post #17

Anecdote: Logo was used in French 80s National "Plan Informatique Pour Tous" https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_informatique_pour_tous (Computing for all), running on Thomson MO5 terminals distributed in many schools. Kids (6-9yo I believe) would learn to "program" using it. For the younger ones it was mostly about moving that infamous turtle, and that was it. It was still something utterly magical, even though the l…

Some screens http://archive.is/xKzo9

Re: Seymour Papert has died

#44

Post by vmarsy »

agumonkey wrote: post #17

Anecdote: Logo was used in French 80s National "Plan Informatique Pour Tous" https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_informatique_pour_tous (Computing for all), running on Thomson MO5 terminals distributed in many schools. Kids (6-9yo I believe) would learn to "program" using it. For the younger ones it was mostly about moving that infamous turtle, and that was it. It was still something utterly magical, even though the l…

I remember using logo during elementary school a bit later (late 90s), the computer room was full of old computers, not sure if they were MO5, but the keyboard looks familiar. I loved it. I was so happy when, back home on windows 3.1, I could open my drawings saved on a floppy disk.

A good memory is the day I found the Help page with instructions on how to draw a wireframe 3D sphere. This was my first successful introduction to the power of "RTFM".

Re: Seymour Papert has died

#45

Post by eggy »

I had just started learning NetLogo, which led me to Lhogho, a compiled Logo, and then references to Seymour Papert's book Mindstorms that piqued my interest. I'll have to give it a go seeing as how many people have spoken so highly of this book. Sad news go lose such a thinker.

Re: Seymour Papert has died

#46

Post by jdcarter »

reuven wrote: post #42

I had the honor of meeting Seymour Papert on a few occasions (there's no way that he would have remembered me), and coming away awestruck and inspired each time. I also read his books and papers, and did a PhD with one of his best-known students, and never failed to come away thorough amazed by his vision, his dedication, and his ability to execute on so much of that -- partly through great research, partly through g…

I'll second the recommendation on "Mindstorms." The book is visionary and just as relevant today as when he wrote it. I teach programming and electronics to kids (just an hour a week) and my teaching is heavily influenced by Mindstorms to this day.

In addition, my own first exposure to computers with with LOGO on an Apple II. Papert changed my life, and the enduring quality of his work will continue to change lives for years to come.

Re: Seymour Papert has died

#48

Post by jhbadger »

sitkack wrote: post #34
wallflower wrote: post #28

RIP, Seymour Papert. Scratch is the spiritual successor to Logo. As Scratch becomes more and more popular, it has been sad to say that there is a tension between the spirit of Scratch and commercialization. Scratch is all about exploration and making mistakes and experiential learning. However, there is a deluge of companies who are trying to create curriculums for Scratch that fit into the traditional School lesson…

When we learned Logo, the teacher was learning right along with us. What a teacher can do, is encourage metacognition, so when a child either gets or not-gets something, they can organize it in their mind. I like scratch, but it seems so Bubble Gum. Logo on an Apple II had a beautiful austerity to it.

Logo doesn't get enough credit. It is more than just a system for turtle graphics, but a real programming language with a lot of similarity to Lisp. Brian Harvey at Berkeley used to be proponent of even using it as an alternative to Lisp for teaching functional programming to undergraduates.
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