Seymour Papert Tribute at IDC 2013

I only planned to watch a little bit of this.  Allison Druin’s talk was particularly recommended to me.  So I started watching, and Paulo Blikstein’s opening remarks were so intriguing. (I loved his characterization that today’s notions of “personalized learning” were “like telling a prisoner that he can walk around his cell all he wants.”)  I hadn’t heard Edith Ackermann in decades, and was particularly struck by her comment, “Any theory of learning that ignore resistances to teaching misses the point!”  Mike Eisenberg, Mitchel Resnick, and Uri Wilensky were all wonderful and insightful talks, and Allison was as good as the recommendation promised.  90 minutes later, I’m explaining to my family where I’d disappeared to…

The intellectual ideas discussed are fascinating, from epistemology to politics to education to design.  Recommended.