Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Technology

Papert, Seymour 359Carr, David F. “Brin, Page Show No Signs of Slowing Down.”eWeek.com. March 15, 2007. Available online. URL: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2104091,00.asp. AccessedOctober 27, 2007.Google. Available online. URL: http://www.google.com. AccessedOctober 27, 2007.Papert, Seymour(1928– )South African/AmericanComputer ScientistSeymour Papert is an artificial intelligence pioneer andinnovative educator who has brought computer science to awider audience, especially young people.Papert was born in Pretoria, South Africa, on March 1,1928. He attended the University of Witwatersrand, earninghis bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 1949 and Ph.D.in 1952. As a student he became active in the movementagainst the racial apartheid system, which was becomingentrenched in South African society. His unwillingness toaccept the established order and his willingness to be anoutspoken activist would serve him well later when he tookon the challenge of educational reform.Papert went to Cambridge University in England andearned another Ph.D. in 1952, then did mathematicsresearch from 1954 to 1958. During this period artificialintelligence, or AI, was taking shape as researchers beganto explore the possibilities for using increasingly powerfulcomputers to create or at least simulate intelligent behavior.In particular, Papert worked closely with another AIpioneer in studying neural networks and perceptrons (seeMinsky, Marvin). These devices made electronic connectionsmuch like those between the neurons in the humanSeymour Papert has made it his life work to create computerfacilities (such as the Logo language) that reflect the psychologyof learning and enable even young students to experiment with“powerful ideas.” (Bill Pierce / Time Life Pictures / GettyImages)brain. By starting with random connections and reinforcingappropriate ones, a computer could actually learn a task(such as solving a maze) without being programmed withinstructions.Papert’s and Minsky’s research acknowledged the valueof this achievement, but in their 1969 book Perceptrons theyalso suggested that this approach had limitations, and thatresearchers needed to focus not just on the workings ofbrain connections but upon how information is actuallyperceived and organized.This focus on cognitive psychology came together withPapert’s growing interest in the process by which humanbeings assimilated mathematical and other concepts. From1958 to 1963 he worked with Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologistand educator. Piaget had developed a theory of learningthat was quite different from that held by most educators.Traditional educational theory tended to view children asbeing incomplete adults who needed to be “filled up” withinformation.Piaget, however, observed that children did not thinklike defective adults. Rather, children at each stage of developmenthad characteristic forms of reasoning that madeperfect sense in terms of the tasks at hand. Piaget believedthat children best developed their reasoning skills by beingallowed to exercise them freely and learn from their mistakes,thus progressing naturally.In the early 1960s Papert went to the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology, where he cofounded the MIT ArtificialIntelligence Laboratory with Minsky in 1965. He alsobegan working with children and developing computer systemsbetter suited for allowing them to explore mathematicalideas.The tool that he created to enable this exploration wasthe LOGO computer language (see Logo). Logo provideda visual, graphical environment at a time when most programmingresulted in long, hard-to-read printouts. At thecenter of the Logo environment is the “turtle,” which can beeither a screen cursor or an actual little robot that can movearound on the floor, tracing patterns on paper. Young studentscan give the turtle simple instructions such as FOR-WARD 50 or RIGHT 100 and draw everything from squaresto complicated spirals. As students continued to work withthe system, they could build more complicated programs bywriting and combining simple procedures. As they work,the students are exploring and grasping key ideas such asrepetition and recursion (the ability of a program to callitself repeatedly).In creating Logo, Papert believed that he had demonstratedthat “ordinary” students could indeed understandthe principles of computer science and explore the widervistas of mathematics. But when he saw how schools weremainly using computers for rote learning, he began to speakout more about problems with the education system. Buildingon Piaget’s work, Papert called for a different approach.Papert often makes a distinction between “instructivism,”or the imparting of information to students, and “constructivism,”or a student learning by doing.Papert “retired” from MIT in 1998, but remains veryactive, as can be seen from the many Web sites that describe