Wow! What a week. I’ve taught in Tampa, Seoul and after 25,000 miles, I am now in Paris to be a plenary speaker at the Constructionism 2010 Conference.
It is such an honor to be invited to speak at a conference featuring some of the smartest people in the world and pioneers in thinking about thinking and learning with computers. Two of Logo’s three inventors, Cynthia Solomon and Wally Feurzig, are here. Seymour Papert‘s influence is ubiquitous and in many ways, the conference is a celebration of Papert’s ideas, work, friendship and leadership.
There is a lot of talk these days about personal learning networks and learning communities, but this is a true learning community featuring experts who have been evolving ideas for as long as 40+ years and newbiews. There is serious expertise here! The conference attendees range from 20ish to 80+ years old. In the spirit of Papert’s Samba School metaphor, we get to spend the next five days “dancing together.”
My paper, A Constructionist Approach to Teaching with Robotics, sounds overly dry and specific, but I hope some of you will take a few minutes to read it since robotics is a metaphor for rethinking the nature of teaching and learning. I even briefly explored the severe weakness of what Apple is now promoting as Challenge-based Learning.
I hope to upload some of the slides I’ve created to supplement the presentation at a later time.
Please vote for my session, The Best Educational Ideas in the World, to be included in the South-by-Southwest Conference! I need LOTS of votes!
Veteran educator Gary Stager, Ph.D. is the author of Twenty Things to Do with a Computer – Forward 50, co-author of Invent To Learn — Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom, publisher at Constructing Modern Knowledge Press, and the founder of the Constructing Modern Knowledge summer institute. He led professional development in the world’s first 1:1 laptop schools thirty years ago and designed one of the oldest online graduate school programs. Gary is also the curator of The Seymour Papert archives at DailyPapert.com. Learn more about Gary here.