Programming in the Classroom - Happy Birthday to Logo!

Hi everybody,
I just posted about Logo turning 4o years old, and a bit of background about why this programming language for children was (and is) important to any of us thinking about the impact of computers on education.

Happy Birthday Logo!

Lots of links and resources for anyone wondering how they could start programming or robotics in their classroom. It's an amazing learning experience, and not as hard as people think!

Anyone out there teaching Logo, Scratch (based on Logo) or other programming languages to kids?

Tags: Logo, children, constructivism, constructivist, programming

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Permalink Reply by Ann on October 25, 2007 at 4:52pm

Way to go Logo. I have taught variations of Logo (HyperLogo, ACSLogo) to the children at my school for the last few years. I started with 8th grade and by now am introducing it to the fifth graders. There are children who love it and children who hate it. I have really only used the turtle graphics and only use it for a few classes as a demonstration of what a programming language is. Each year, we review the previous year's skills and add a new command or two. I hope as a result that they also become more aware and understanding of how angles can be used as they work through simple drawings and the idea of recursion. Geometry concepts can be the poor relation of the math world.

I downloaded Scratch last month and started playing with it. I love it. I am wondering if its more graphical interface will interest more students than having to type the code. I showed the seventh graders a sample of what I created and they looked very interested. I probably won't start with Scratch until the new year. I'll take a look at your links and bookmark them in my delicious account. Thanks.

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on October 25, 2007 at 6:38pm

We just started peeking at Scratch this week. The kids loved it--we'll see where it goes. I looked at the videos and will share with kids on big screen (an intro for kids and a workshop format explained by adults) and made copies of the reference materials and will say "have at it". I teach in a full day elementary gifted program so am lucky not to have the time restraints of the classroom teacher. Part of the reason to use a program like this is to problem solve, so I won't actually teach anything. They'll whine for a while but then take off.

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Permalink Reply by samccoy on October 26, 2007 at 12:04am

Logo rules! This language was so beloved that it spawned many descendants such as Scratch and Squeak. I would say that Logo really is the language that really started the entire object oriented revolution, explosion and evolution. Great post! I have used Scratch and Squeak. They are fantastic for kids of all ages. It is still amazing to me that I really can see the family resemblance in these languages.

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on October 26, 2007 at 6:16am

I'm amazed at the capabilities of Scratch and it's free!! It kinda reminds me of how I felt when I first saw Hyperscore---I couldn't beleive it was free and better than many high priced software packages. Web 2.0 tools have that great add-on, you don't have to worry about your saved project fitting on a diskette! Ah, that ages me! N

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Permalink Reply by samccoy on October 26, 2007 at 1:23pm

Love the opensource community. Squeak is free also, and Randy Caton teaches lessons on how to use it at TappedIN.
Also, one of our members is taken another offshoot, Croquet to a higher level, creating a platform to use with whiteboards, Eduism.