Idit Harel Caperton

Dr. Idit Harel Caperton (born 1958) is a world renowned expert on how children learn, create, and develop greater thinking power by taking computers and Internet media technology into their own hands and minds. In the past 20 years, she has published books, articles and essays, and won multiple awards for her publications and projects, and ground breaking research work at MIT and entrepreneurial business leadership at MaMaMedia.com and the MaMaMedia Consulting Group.

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From 1982-1985 she studied and worked at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and its Education Technology Center (ETC). In 1985, she joined Nicholas Negroponte's new MIT Media Lab when it was founded, studied and worked there until 1994. In 1995, she founded in NYC the award-winning MaMaMedia.com website -- to give kids and parents direct access to technology-empowered learning experiences on the Internet and develop their 21st Century Learning Skills. Dr. Idit Caperton and MaMaMedia have established rather fast a successful Internet brand, the first print magazine for kids about the Internet, and partnerships with leading companies such as AOL, Time Warner, MSN-TV, Nintendo, Intel, Scholastic, and General Mills. They won numerous honors and awards, including the 21st-Century Achievement Award from the Computerworld Honors Program for "visionary use of information technology" for their 9/11 Peace Project.

Related Topics:
1985 - Nicholas Negroponte - MIT Media Lab - 1995 - NYC

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Born and raised in Israel, Idit likes to describe how she grew up in a startup. Israel was 10 years old when she was born, and therefore, building systems from scratch and entrepreneurship was all around her during her childhood, including in her family of Holocaust survisors. With her first husband David Harel, she came to study in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA in 1982 - after receiving their BA from Tel-Aviv University. Idit earned two graduate degrees from Harvard University (EdM '84 and CAS '85 at HGSE) and was one of the first students to receive a Ph.D. from the new MIT Media Lab in 1988. Her groundbreaking book, Children Designers, based on her MIT research about under privileged fourth-graders challenged to develop their own math software, won the 1991 Outstanding Book Award from the American Education Research Association.With Seymour Papert she wrote a few articles, and the first book about Constructionism (1991), created a website for his last book The Connected Family (1996), and another comprehensive website for his works and essays -- on Papert.org (1998). Papert has been a founding Chairman of the Advisory Board of MaMaMedia Inc since 1995. In 2002, Dr. Idit Caperton was also honored by the Network of Educators in Science and Technology and MIT "for devotion, innovation, and imagination in science and technology on behalf of children and youth around the world."

Related Topics:
Israel - Startup - Holocaust - Cambridge, Massachusetts - USA - 1982 - Tel-Aviv University - 1988 - 1991 - Seymour Papert - Constructionism - 2002

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She is also the Founder and President of the World Wide Workshop Foundation for Children's Media Technology & Learning, which partners with educational institutions to launch innovative digital applications for the enhancement of children?s learning, and to transform education in the United States and around the world.

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In addition to running the MaMaMedia Consulting Group and the World Wide Workshop Foundation, Idit serves on several Advisory Boards -- for innovative academic programs (the ATLAS Institute at the University of Colorado at Boulder); technology startups (Saybotin Shanghai), and non-profit organizations (Taking It Global, the world's most popular online international community for youth, and CAMP, a Kyoto-based technology and learning research foundation.) She is highly sought after as a woman entrepreneur and technology business consultant (GoKnowin Michigan, Schlumberger's global education SEED worldwide and online programs, and the Liberty Science Center new communications exhibit in New Jersey). She is also an invited speaker and lecturer in business and academia around the world.

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In 2003, she married her second husband Gaston Caperton, former Governor of West Virginia (1988-1996) and the President of the College Board (1999-present). They live in New York City and together they have 5 children and 5 grandchildren. They share strong interst and passion for making education better and more exciting for all children in the USA and around the world. Among their activities, in the past decade they have been active members of the Aspen Institute FOCAS and Info-Tech policy programs. Their recent passion is about building bridges between USA and China through several new partnerships they have built as individuals as well as between their companies and China's Ministry of Education, HanBan, AP Chinese and the World Conference, presenting at several universities in Beijing and Shanghai, and through organizations and companies they advise and help grow, like OLPC and Saybot.

Related Topics:
2003 - Gaston Caperton - USA - China

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A visionary who is also the mother of three, Dr. Idit Harel Caperton is an expert in how we can better parent the digital generation. She recently partnered with iAmplify.com to create a new website - idit's-clickerati-communiti for supporting today's parents and educators through a series of mobile audio downloadable content. During the fall of 2005 Idit has been living in China with her youngest daughter as a Visiting Professor and Consultant at the Software Engineering Institute at ECNU - East China Normal University in Shanghai, developing and modeling student-centered, project-based curriculum for their graduate schools. She continues to learn and work tirelessly in her quest to help all children from all areas of the world become productive and successful 21st-century citizens - by using technology to harness their voices, creativity, and dreams.

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