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The Connected Family: Bridging the Digital Generation Gap
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Author: Seymour A. Papert, Nicholas Negroponte
List Price: $22.95
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 1563523353
Publisher: Longstreet Press (October, 1996)
Edition: Hardcover
Sales Rank: 53,766
Average Customer Rating: 3.54 out of 5
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Customer ReviewsRating: 4 out of 5
How about a Connected *School* ?
Seymour Papert's The Connected Family is better suited toteachers than parents, since its chief criticism concerns schools' useof computers. He seems to believe that since schools are doing such a poor job of finding new and innovative uses for computers, he will target families in an attempt to allow children at least some positive experience with computers. While this is not a bad idea, I think his time would be better spent encouraging schools to rethink their use of computers. Certainly families should develop common interests and work together on projects, but children spend so much more time in school that changes there are likely to have a greater impact. I hope that many teachers find the time to read this book and consider making changes in their use of computers.Teachers of very young students often recognize exploration as legitimate learning, but as the age of the student increases, the tendency is to decrease the time spent on exploration and increase time spent on instruction. This is done in the quest for efficiency in spite of the fact that we all know the most powerful lessons in life come from experience (exploring and experimenting.) It is Papert's idea that computers are best used as alternate universes in which students can continue to explore and experiment. It used to be that you could explore a piece of technology and learn how it worked (picture peering into a manual typewriter,) but with increasing reliance on microprocessors this is laregly untrue today (picture peering inside your PC.) Papert's ideal of learning through exploration cannot occur when the working of the world is opaque. His solution for computers is to ignore the hardware (it is hopelessly opaque) and focus instead software. Don't ask children to merely use software but ask them to program a computer. This will reveal the workings of the digital age and remove some of the mystery of computers. Papert poses some interesting ideas in this teaser of a book. I'd like to see more work done towards developing the type of software he imagines. The book's web site ... may have once had some of this, but it has now been replaced by ... a kid-oriented, but very limited site ...
Rating: 3 out of 5
Positive Points from Seymour A. Papert's Generation Gap book
Some of the most important things that I as an educator and parent took away from this book was the involvement of both the parents and teacher in the education of their children. My asessment of the book was that he uses the computer to increase the communication of all family members and show the uses of the computer. The one thing that stayed with me the most was the saying "Not why the computer but how the computer". That means to think of ways to include the computer in your everyday life. This is a book that all educators should have and encourage their students parents to get.
Rating: 3 out of 5
EDC-571 Linda Hermans
I didn't have a full understanding of what Papert meant, when he spoke of typical schools and typical homes. He seems to be implying that children coming from these enviorments can't be computer literate.
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