Plane Reading

admin on July 23rd, 2008

Constructing Modern Knowledge stands on the shoulders of giants. The following articles help set the tone for the spirit, possibilities and powerful ideas guiding the event.

Some are whimsical, others complex. However, they’re all worthy of your consideration.

Ice-breakers (4 of my favorite stories)

• What I Did On My Three Summer Vacations by Brian Silverman & Illustrated by Peter Reynolds
• It’s Good to be King by Alex Blumberg
• The Boy Who Cracked the Code to Everything by Steven Levy
• The Littlest Hustler: Portrait of a New York childhood, in the extreme by Geoffrey Gray

Powerful ideas

• Progressive Education: Why It’s Hard to Beat, But Also Hard to Find by Alfie Kohn
• What’s the Big Idea? Toward a pedagogy of idea power by Seymour Papert
• The Computer as Material: Messing about with time by George Franz and Seymour Papert
• Piaget’s Constructivism, Papert’s Constructionism: What’s the difference? by Edith Ackermann
• Epistemological Pluralism and the Revaluation of the Concrete by Sherry Turkle and Seymour Papert (well worth reading a few times)
• Twenty Things to Do with a Computer (1971) by Cynthia Solomon and Seymour Papert
• What is Logo? And Who Needs it? A 1999 essay by Seymour Papert from LCSI’s book, Logo Philosophy and Implementation.

Read some or all of these articles before you leave, while on the plane (unless you’re the pilot) or at your convenience during and after CMK08.

Tags: Alfie Kohn, CMK08, Constructing Modern Knowledge, constructionism, constructivism, Cynthia Solomon, Gary Stager, Seymour Papert
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