For Kay, the DynaBook was meant to help build capacity so that children (and adults too) would create their own interactive learning tools. The DynaBook was not simply about a new piece of hardware or new software, but about a new literacy, a new way of teaching and learning. And that remains largely unrealized.
Note: prgrm or b prgrammed
Kay cites one of Papert’s best-known lines in his manifesto: “should the computer program the kid or should the kid program the computer?”
Logo – and particularly the Turtle that the language became most synonymous with – helped give students an embodied understanding of mathematics. There was a Turtle robot and later a Turtle graphic on the screen.
Computers, argued Papert, should unlock children’s “powerful ideas.” That’s the subtitle to his 1980 book Mindstorms,
Seymour Papert, Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas. Basic Books. 1980.