Rate My Professor Seymour Papert

In 1974, Papert became the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Education at MIT, serving until 1981. He was a founding faculty member of the MIT Media Lab in 1985, where he led the Epistemology and Learning Research Group. In 1989, he was named the first LEGO Professor of Learning Research, a position reflecting his collaboration with the LEGO company that inspired the LEGO Mindstorms robotics kit. Papert developed Logo, the first programming language designed for children, in the late 1960s, allowing control of a 'turtle' robot or graphic object to embody his constructionist theory—emphasizing knowledge construction through active building. Key publications include Perceptrons: An Introduction to Computational Geometry (1969, co-authored with Marvin Minsky), Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas (1980), The Children's Machine: Designing Children to Invent the Future (1993), and The Connected Family: Bridging the Digital Generation Gap (1996). Among his honors were the Guggenheim Fellowship (1980), Marconi International Fellowship (1981), Smithsonian Award from Computerworld (1997), and Newsweek's recognition as one of the top 10 innovators in education (2001). Later, he co-founded One Laptop per Child in 2004, distributing millions of laptops globally. Papert became professor emeritus in 1998 and passed away on July 31, 2016.