Code Nation. Michael J. Halvorson

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      Figure 3.11Seymour Papert at MIT with a Turtle Writer robot and a fish shape that it produced. (Image courtesy of the Computer History Museum)

      Papert’s goal was to make computer programming an immersive process. In his book Mindstorms, he described his objectives in relation to human language learning:

      It is possible to design computers so that learning to communicate with them can be a natural process, more like learning French by living in France than like trying to learn it through the unnatural process of American foreign-language instruction in classrooms… The idea of “talking mathematics” to a computer can be generalized to a view of learning mathematics in “Mathland”; that is to say, in a context which is to learning mathematics what living in France is to learning French.“Talking mathematics”³⁷

      Rather than using a computer to program the child, so that the child might learn to mimic the computer’s ways, the child should program the computer, acquiring a feeling of mastery over the device, developing a sense of agency from intimate contact with the technology.

      Papert’s ideas had political and economic consequences, because he recognized that American schools had limited access to computers and time-sharing systems in the 1960s. (In fact, it would be challenging to provide children with even limited access to computers through the 1970s and 1980s.) But Papert’s concerns about access and the social conditions for learning echo calls for universal tools and the “convivial technology” that we observed in the writings of Ivan Illich, Stewart Brand, Lee Felsenstein, and Ted Nelson in Chapter Convivial technologyBrand, StewartFelsenstein, Lee2. Indeed, although Papert’s work is not usually framed as “countercultural,” his circles shared many sympathies with countercultural technologists in Europe and the U.S. In the following years, educational specialists in Britain would introduce computers to children in what they called infants school and primary schools. (See Figure Infants schoolPrimary schools3.12.) There was also an early relationship between the Logo team at MIT and the research group at Xerox PARC in the San Francisco Bay Area. Daniel G. Bobrow wrote the first version of the Logo program in Lisp while working in the AI group at MIT. In 1972, he moved to Xerox PARC and worked there for several decades. Cynthia Solomon also worked for Apple and Atari in the 1980s, overseeing implementations of the Logo language for PCs. Lisp

      Logo was created in the research labs of MIT and Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN), but the language had its greatest impact after PCs made educational software more accessible to students. Planning for a long future with technology was always part of Papert’s vision, and he worked to establish pathways between computers and education all his life. “My discussion of a computer culture and its impact on thinking presupposes a massive penetration of powerful computers into people’s lives. That this will happen there can be no doubt.”Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN)BBN.Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN)³⁸

      Papert’s colleagues, Wally Feurzeig, Cynthia Solomon, and Daniel Watt, were also instrumental in disseminating the group’s ideas into the community. Wally Feurzeig (1927–2013) had a 50-year career at BBN in Cambridge, where he specialized in AI research and the interactive use of computers in schools. In the early 1960s, Feurzeig was interested in time-sharing systems and interpreted computer languages, and he envisioned these technologies working together to make learning easier for students. Feurzeig created the TELCOMP computer language in 1964 to teach elementary mathematics through TELCOMP computer languageprogramming, followed by the Stringcomp language that supported algebraic expressions and higher-level concepts. After these efforts, he tested his ideas with the support of the U.S. Office of Education, arranging for programming classes in eight elementary and middle schools in the Boston area during the 1965–1966 school year.³⁹ Feurzeig brought language design skills and much practical experience to the Logo group, along with a deep commitment to teaching coding and interactive learning.