"Technology and Education in the New Millennium" to be discussed at Bates

Seymour Papert, an early pioneer in the field of artificial intelligence and technology-based education methods at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will discuss “Technology and Education in the New Millennium” at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, March 16, in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives, Bates College. The public is invited to attend the Muskie Millennial Series lecture free of charge.

Papert invented the Logo computer language, an important effort to give young children control over new technology with activities in mathematics, language, music, robotics, telecommunications and science. Logo can be used to develop simulations, games and multimedia presentations. Papert’s book “Mindstorms: Children, Computers and Powerful Ideas” (1980), gave thousands of teachers throughout the world access to the intellectual and creative potential of Logo in the classroom.

Papert’s work with eminent developmental psychologist Jean Piaget at the University of Geneva led him to consider using mathematics in the service of understanding how children think and learn. In the early 1960s, Papert and Marvin Minsky co-founded the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT. In 1985, he was one of the founders of the MIT Media Laboratory, and he was named MIT’s LEGO Professor of Learning Research in 1988.

Papert is the author of several books, including “The Connected Family: Bridging the Digital Generation Gap,” and “The Children’s Machine: Rethinking School in the Age of the Computer,” which has been translated in six languages worldwide. Honored with the Smithsonian Institution’s NEC Leadership Award for Education in 1997, Papert is frequently called to testify before U.S. presidential commissions and congressional committees for his advice on technology-based educational methods.