Once upon a time, constructionism was fresh and new. In those early days, the world of education was a very different place. We needed to more than just sell educators on the constructionist vision; we needed to convince them that computers would one day be inexpensive enough, and ubiquitous enough, to be part of the everyday infrastructure of schools.
Today, it has been over three decades since Mindstorms was first published (Papert, 1980). The vision laid out there has proven to be remarkably resilient. Even now, the examples presented in Mindstorms evoke strong reactions, and they remind us of what education could be. But the world around us has been changing dramatically. It used to be a special day when a student had the opportunity to sit down in front of a computer. Now, it is increasingly the case that computers are seen as part of the basic infrastructure of learning... |
