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Mindstorms Revisited: Making New Construals of Seymour Papert’s Legacy

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Book cover Educational Robotics in the Makers Era (Edurobotics 2016 2016)

Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 560))

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Abstract

Seymour Papert’s Mindstorms is a seminal text in educational technology. Its subtitle: Children, Computers and Powerful Ideas reflects Papert’s broad visionary ambition, yet the cover of its second edition is headlined: ALL ABOUT LOGO - HOW IT WAS INVENTED AND HOW IT WORKS. Notwithstanding the enormous practical impact of LOGO on educational applications of computers, we should not forget Papert’s declaration regarding the computer-inspired revolution in learning he envisioned: “I do not present LOGO environments as my proposal for this … [they are] too primitive … too limited by the technology of the 1970s …”. This paper revisits the challenge implicit in this declaration, appraising the extent to which today’s technological advances can realise Papert’s vision, and proposing an alternative model for his central conception of “an object-to-think-with, that will contribute to the essentially social process of constructing the education of the future”.

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Acknowledgments

I am indebted to all the members of the CONSTRUIT! project team and to Dimitris Alimisis in particular for inviting me to prepare this keynote paper. The CONSTRUIT! project has been funded with support from the European Commission under the Erasmus+ programme (2014-1-UK01-KA200-001818). This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Science, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK

    Meurig Beynon

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  1. Meurig Beynon
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Correspondence to Meurig Beynon .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. European Lab for Educational Technology , Sparta, Greece

    Dimitris Alimisis

  2. Department of Information Engineering, Università degli Studi di Padova, Padua, Italy

    Michele Moro

  3. Department of Information Engineering, Università degli Studi di Padova , Padova, Italy

    Emanuele Menegatti

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Beynon, M. (2017). Mindstorms Revisited: Making New Construals of Seymour Papert’s Legacy. In: Alimisis, D., Moro, M., Menegatti, E. (eds) Educational Robotics in the Makers Era. Edurobotics 2016 2016. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 560. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55553-9_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55553-9_1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-55552-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-55553-9

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