RIP Seymour Papert

He visited U of I while we were there and taught some classes for kids at Uni High and the PLATO lab. One was on the science of cooking and nother on juggling.

He invented LOGO language ad turtle geometry. As you will see his death was announced by the Lego foundation. I mean Logo foundation but I think he was behind the early Lego computer stuff.

From the article via the NYT:

Seymour Papert, 88, Dies; Saw Education’s Future in Computers

By GLENN RIFKINAUG. 1, 2016    Continue reading the main story

Seymour Papert, a visionary educator and mathematician who well before the advent of the personal computer foresaw children using computers as instruments for learning and enhancing creativity, died on Sunday at his home in Blue Hill, Me. He was 88.

His death was announced by the Logo Foundation, a nonprofit educational organization that he co-founded. His wife was the Russia scholar and author Suzanne Massie,

 

Dr. Papert (pronounced PAP-ert), who was born in South Africa, was one of the leading educational theorists of the last half-century and a co-director of the renowned Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In some circles he was considered the world’s foremost expert on how technology can provide new ways for children to learn.

From Wikipedia

Seymour Aubrey Papert (February 29, 1928 – July 31, 2016) was a South African-born American MIT mathematician, computer scientist, and educator. He was one of the pioneers of artificial intelligence, and co-inventor, with Wally Feurzeig, of the Logo programming language.

Early years and education

Papert attended the University of the Witwatersrand, receiving a B.A. in 1949 and a PhD in mathematics in 1952. He then went on to receive another PhD, also in mathematics, at Cambridge University in 1959, where he was supervised by Frank Smithies.^[1] He was a leading figure in the revolutionary socialist circle around Socialist Review while living in London in the 1950s.^[2]

Career

Papert worked as a researcher in a variety of places, including St. John’s College, Cambridge, the Henri Poincaré Institute at theUniversity of Paris, the University of Geneva and the National Physical Laboratory in London before becoming a research associate at MIT in 1963.^[1] He held this position until 1967, when he became professor of applied math and was made co-director of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory by its founding director Professor Marvin Minsky, until 1981; he also served as Cecil and Ida Green professor of education at MIT from 1974-1981.^[1]

Research and theories

Papert worked on learning theories, and was known for focusing on the impact of new technologies on learning in general, and in schools as learning organizations in particular.

Constructionism

At MIT, Papert went on to create the Epistemology and Learning Research Group at the MIT Architecture Machine Group which later became the MIT Media Lab.^[3] Here, he was the developer of a theory on learning called constructionism, built upon the work of Jean Piaget in constructivist learning theories. Papert had worked with Piaget at the University of Geneva from 1958 to 1963^[4] and was one of Piaget’s protégés; Piaget himself once said that “no one understands my ideas as well as Papert”.^[5] Papert has rethought how schools should work, based on these theories of learning.

Logo

Papert used Piaget’s work in his development of the Logo programming language while at MIT. He created Logo as a tool to improve the way children think and solve problems. A small mobile robot called the “Logo Turtle” was developed, and children were shown how to use it to solve simple problems in an environment of play. A main purpose of the Logo Foundation research group is to strengthen the ability to learn knowledge.^[6] Papert insisted a simple language or program that children can learn—like Logo—can also have advanced functionality for expert users.

Other work

As part of his work with technology, Papert has been a proponent of the Knowledge Machine. He was one of the principals for the One Laptop Per Child initiative to manufacture and distribute The Children’s Machine in developing nations.

Papert has also collaborated with Lego on their Logo-programmable Lego Mindstorms robotics kits.