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The Children's Machine: Rethinking School In The Age Of The Computer
In his classsic book, Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and powerful Ideas , Seymour Papert set out a vision of how computers could change school. In The Children's Machine he now looks back over a decade during which American schools acquired more than three million computers and assesses progress and resistance to progress.
256 pages, Paperback
First published July 6, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
May 16, 2007
I borrowed The Children's Machine from the library because they didn't have Mindstorms, also by Seymour Papert. While the book was interesting enough as I was reading it, I have to admit that I got to the end not entirely understanding what he was trying to say with the whole book. He's talking about ways that computers can completely rework the ways that schools are run and the way children are educated, but I didn't feel like I left the book really understanding what his proposal for "rethinking school" was. Papert is the inventor of the Logo programming language, which some of you may remember as the "turtle" language you used to draw shapes on a computer screen in elementary school. He's also done a lot of work with Lego (it is no coincidence that Lego Mindstorms share a name with his 1980 book). He provides some very interesting anecdotes of children working with Logo and Lego and does manage to delve quite a bit into how children use these tools/toys, so I think the book is valuable for these insights, but it felt a little disjointed to me and didn't seem to spend as much time rethinking schools as I expected it to. Interesting, but I wish I'd been able to read Mindstorms instead - that seems to be his most famous/important work.
June 6, 2021
"...if we do not become involved with the area of knowledge, we'll have trouble learning it with or without School's methods." #DeZinVanHetBoek #ThePointOfTheBook
May 17, 2014
I was required to read this for a graduate course. As most students, I was dreading getting into this book, even though I love reading, because I thought it was going to be a tedious, boring piece of literature. However, I was wrong. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Papert's views on technology in the classroom. I do wish the setting was a little more current, as this book was written in 1993, so the lingo is a bit old, however, the basic ideas are the same today. Papert spent a great deal of time discussing the use of technology in the classrooms, student-centered learning, teacher-centered teaching, etc. This is a great read for teachers in K-12 classrooms today!
June 25, 2007
A good discussion of technology and play in the classroom. Papert wants to fundamentally change the way schools teach children. A shift if focus from teaching to learning. Papert sees the computer as a tool in accomplishing this task. Computers allow students to work with technology and develop personally meaning for relationships with math and science, learning for that matter. Self motivated learning is a far more important skills for students to develop in learn. And I agree!
October 9, 2010
Enjoyed his perspectives and descriptions of his work with kids and technology. Keep in the mind the book was written in 1993, so the technology use was more with young children programming with LOGO, which I found very intriguing.
December 12, 2008
Good, thought provoking, although a little tedious in the end.
May 26, 2012
Required reading for graduate class. Written in 1994 BUT still relevant today which is awesomely SAD commentary on the US education system. It's surprising anyone knows anything anymore.
November 9, 2015
Changed my ideas on learning.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews