by Net week, I’ll be in Zurich, Switzerland to present a paper and lead two hands-on workshops at the biennial Constructionism Conference. I’ve presented at each of the Constructionism Conferences and many of the EuroLogo conferences that preceded it.
I am particularly proud of this paper. Its brevity is the result of strict (and archaic) page limits. In the paper, I used Seymour Papert as a metaphor for the threats, challenges, and opportunities for the community his powerful ideas birthed. Although, I am not a spiritual person, I felt my friend Seymour on my shoulder when I wrote this “wake up call” for Constructionism 2023. The paper was rejected, as I fully expected, and was met with savage reviews, including one reviewer who wrote, “I don’t get it.”
I was delighted. A tepid response would have been much less satisfying.
Channeling Dr. Papert, I doubled-down on the most incendiary aspects of my critique and resubmitted the paper for this year’s conference. I hope you enjoy reading this unconventional work of passion. I would be happy to discuss the issues raised. Sadly, the need for the paper seems more acute in 2025, than it did in 2023.
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.