Papert Chapters 6-10

Papert is a very intelligent and motivated man.  He has put a lot of work into study students and looking for ways to get students involved in the programming part of computers.  He talks about giving students what they need to learn and let them find out for themselves.  I like his statement that ” there is no real crisis in education after all, since people with a will do find a way to learn what they need!”  That statement struck me hard, because our technology coordinator and I had just had a conversation about how to get faculty involved in using technology.  He finally stated that if they want to learn they will find a way to do it.  They won’t wait for someone else to do it for them.  It is very frustrating to have technology and no-one will bother to learn how to use it.  The sad part is as teachers if we don’t make resources available for students they are never going to learn to use it.  You can’t learn to play basketball without a ball and a hoop. Papert has some really good points we should press our beliefs on our students, whether it is fear of technology or the pushing of technology onto students.  You can lead them to it and they will decide whether to drink from the water hole or not.