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This is hands-down the most interesting edtech book I received for review in 2021, and easily the most inspiring. I reviewed it for SchoolsWeek magazine:
Back in 1971, when computers in schools were barely conceivable, Seymour Papert and Cynthia Solomon produced a revolutionary paper. Reproduced in this book, their Twenty Things to Do with a Computer introduced teachers to the idea that programming could be used to engage children, release their creativity and still learn stuff.
Reading that paper now, it’s astonishing to realise just how visionary it was. It argued that children should be taught to programme computers, rather than employing computers to programme children.
Stager and Solomon’s work of the same title for this Forward Fifty edition takes up the ideas originally presented in Twenty Things and seeks to renew or re-imagine them for a new age. They bring in a range of specialists to achieve this, and the result is uplifting and depressing in equal parts.
Continue reading: Twenty Things to do with a Computer Forward 50