Comment by invader | Hacker News Reader

Comment by invader | Hacker News Reader

I consider Logo an undeservedly forgotten technology that showed the world a glimpse of what computerized education really is, and Seymour Papert is a misunderstood genius ahead of his time.

The whole point was a very visual way of learning with immediate feedback, where you build stuff in order to understand it.

Papert based his own ideas of constructionism on children's cognitive development theories of Jean Piaget, a famous Swiss psychologist with whom he worked in the 50s - early 60s.

Logo pioneered a whole class of tools and languages built around constructivist ideas (e.g. Ozobot, Scratch, EToy, Processing, Design by Numbers...) and I hope these ideas will not be totally forgotten in the era of slop, when people prize ignorance and no longer seem to appreciate the concept of "build to understand".

Do you think the ideas behind LOGO has been forgotten as well? As you've mentioned, it has spawned many learning tools since. My question is, do you think anything new has superseded LOGO in achieving its goals? Or is LOGO still the best embodiment of the ideas set out by Seymour?

Well, it's certainly not completely dead - there are many tools out there trying to implement visual learning from first principles. But I feel the "constructivist" core has been lost over time. Like we forgot the "why" of the equation while still keeping on building things.

Maybe it is not even about the tools themselves, but how they are used. It is like a cargo cult of constructivism that praises mechanical results instead of celebrating creativity, inspiration, spirit of exploration, and confidence that it is possible to build something new.

Right, so a creative tool meant to promote constructionism for students eventually becomes a blunt hammer used to drive mechanical outcomes.

Side note, I do think your phrase "build to understand" is a good layman explanation for constructionism. Akin to "write to think".

I've always been curious why this "clearly better way to learn" hasn't been more widely adopted.

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