Digital Gen Gap

I love trolling the sales aisles in bookstores, and often end up buying something even when I have way too many books on my "to read" shelf at home. I can't pass up a bargain, and even more so I can't pass up a great find.

A couple of weeks ago, in the sale aisle at Barnes & Noble, I discovered The Connected Family: bridging the digital generation gap by Seymour Papert for half price. It was right next to The History of Embalming, which is actually what caught my eye at first -- but I wasn't even tempted to crack the binding on that. However The Connected Family looked right up my alley, and the price was right, so I couldn't pass it up.

The book was published in 1996, which in computer terms seems like a million years ago. But the discussion is really as relevant now as it was then. In the book he starts by discussing how kids today relate to technology, and then goes on to counsel us parents on how to help nuture and participate in the act of discovery through technology. That part felt a little dated to me. But in the second part he start discussion use of the LOGO programming language, which he developed. And through this how empowering computers could be when kids where given suitable tools to create their own computer projects. He gives examples of both student multimedia projects and using LOGO to create games. His idea is to allow experimentation and progressive building, sort of like building something with Legos. You start with a pile of possibilities and just put things together, maybe pull a few off and reposition them, and generally mess around until you end up with some cool creation. He talks about social toys, that in a computer setting allow kids to create their own characters that interact in their own world.

In schools he is stronly advocating one computer per student -- which in 1996 was a little radical. But then he'd been pushing this point since the 1960's, and it seems he played a strong role in helping Maine launch its one-one middle school computer initiative.

The book jacket lists Seymor as holding the Lego Chair for Learning Research at MIT. A search at MIT shows him still listed on the MIT Media Lab faculty list, and affiliated with the Future of Learning Group. His long career seems to be characterized by forward thinking, and pushing for innovation in the field of education.