Let's Tie the Digital Knot
Seymour Papert,
Technos Quarterly,
Aug 13, 2003
This article is five years old but it is fundamentally right and well worth repeating in the context of the current debate about teachers' use of technology. In particular, as was commented to me yesterday, "most virtual classrooms and computer facilitated learning looks to education like the horseless carriage looked to the old buggies - cosmetically different." I agree. Read this: "No, Doctor Professor, the boot is on the other foot. It is your established curriculum and your concept of School that were dictated by technology — the pre-twentieth century technology of writing, printing, and calculating. The real offer of digital technology is liberation from the consequences of having been restricted by these primitive tools!" And more: "Think about a world in which there is: No such thing as fourth grade, because age segregation has gone the way of other arbitrary divisions of people. No such thing as a classroom, because learning happens in a variety of settings. And no such thing as curriculum, because the idea that everyone should have the same knowledge has come to be seen as totalitarian."
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