Thinking with your fingers and touching with your mind: the cognitive dance of Edith Ackermann / Pensando con los dedos y tocando con la mente: la danza cognitiva de Edith Ackermann

Abstract

Edith Ackermann was one of the most important scholars in the interdisciplinary field of Child-Computer Interaction. Trained as a developmental psychologist and having worked with Jean Piaget in Switzerland, Ackermann went to MIT in 1985 to join an intrepid group of researchers led by Seymour Papert who were trying to understand how extant theories of development and learning would fare in a world in which children would be surrounded by computational artefacts. For the ensuing three decades, Ackermann would use her unique interdisciplinary expertise in the service of creating new theories of development for this new world, generating cutting-edge research, inspiring a generation of students, and producing seminal papers. This article, making use of literature as well as interviews with colleagues of Edith, discusses Ackermann’s contribution to the field, her life trajectory, impact, and ideas. Edith passed away on 24 December 2016.