iPads, MakerEd and More in Education

Many of the ideas that have become popular in education today like the power of projects and collaboration — not to mention the way technology could change learning — are rooted in ideas put forward by Seymour Papert, who died in 2016. His legacy lives on at the MIT Media Lab, where Mitch Resnick, a key figure behind the development of the kids programming language Scratch, tries to carry Papert’s ideas forward.

Papert had a vision of children learning with technology in ways that were revolutionary. He believed that kids learn better when they are solving problems in context. He also knew that caring passionately about the problem helps children fall in love with learning. He thought educating kids shouldn’t be about explanation, but rather should be about falling in love with ideas.