The Connected Family: Bridging the Digital Generation Gap
by Seymour Papert

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Book Reviews of The Connected Family: Bridging the Digital Generation Gap

Book Review: How about a Connected *School* ?
Summary: 4 Stars

Teachers of very young students often recognize exploration as legitimate learning, but as the age of the student increases, the tendency is to decrease the time spent on exploration and increase time spent on instruction. This is done in the quest for efficiency in spite of the fact that we all know the most powerful lessons in life come from experience (exploring and experimenting.) It is Papert's idea that computers are best used as alternate universes in which students can continue to explore and experiment.

It used to be that you could explore a piece of technology and learn how it worked (picture peering into a manual typewriter,) but with increasing reliance on microprocessors this is laregly untrue today (picture peering inside your PC.) Papert's ideal of learning through exploration cannot occur when the working of the world is opaque. His solution for computers is to ignore the hardware (it is hopelessly opaque) and focus instead software. Don't ask children to merely use software but ask them to program a computer. This will reveal the workings of the digital age and remove some of the mystery of computers.

Papert poses some interesting ideas in this teaser of a book. I'd like to see more work done towards developing the type of software he imagines. The book's web site ... may have once had some of this, but it has now been replaced by ... a kid-oriented, but very limited site ...

Summary of The Connected Family: Bridging the Digital Generation Gap

Children's Books

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