Logo UpdateThe Log o Foundation Newsletter Volume 1, Number 1 - Spring 1993 In this issue... Where's the Elephant? About the Authors 14 by Seymour Papert The Best Learning Is Play 3 Logo is about 25 years old and was therefore approximately half-way through its Butfirslies 13 lifetime (so far) when it moved out of a sheltered childhood in the laboratory to become Classroom Logo Projects 14 an adult actor in the real world of schools. The first version to achieve any significant Logo Software Sources 4 circulation was implemented on the TI99/4, whose 32 spritely turtles allowed far more Logo Tool Box 2 dynamic displays than is possible even today on any of the mainstream school computers. Logo Users Groups 6 But despite its relatively klutzy graphics and limited computational power, the Apple was A National Transformation 3 the platform on which Logo was elevated to a social scale, both in terms of numbers of Publications Announcement 15 users — in the lens of milHons of children — and in terms of its role in the development VI International Logo of educational computing as aprofession andan intellectual discipline. A1986bibliography Congress Announcement 7 already listed over five hundred publications explicitly about Logo and this was only a Sound Mathelic Advice 2 small fraction of publications that discussed it under other headings. Along with many Starting a Logo Users Group 6 strengths, this literature has a weakness that I shall be trying to remedy in these columns. Summer Logo Courses 16 Most writing in praise or in criticism of Logo takes a particular form of it as given; my Welcome to Logo Update and intention here is to adopt what one would call a developmental approach if one were the Logo Foundation 1 talking about children. Where's the Elephant? 1 Approaching Logo as an idea in development rather than a fixed thing to be judged has placed me in a third position in relation to debates between people who think Logo is great and those who think it has "failed." Just as Logo encourages children to see bugs as Welcome to Logo Update positive things to think about, so I have taken weaknesses in the nature and the uses of and the Logo Foundation Logo as rich sources of ideas about where to go next.* ' : ^ " .. J , • : • i by Michael Tempel A 1980 Logo teacher looking at a version from thirteen years earlier and one from thirteen years later might recognize neither as "Logo." The former because it had no In the lead article of this newsletter, turtle. How could it be Logo? The latter — for example the LCSl computational Seymour Papert refers to the time around construction system called MicroWorlds — because it has the very features that have 1980 when Logo moved out into "the real come to be seen in debates about educational computing as "the opposite of Logo." world of schools." I remember that time LogoWriter had already shifted the terms of one such debate from "should we do Logo well. I was an elementary school teacher or should we do word processing" to consideration of how word processing should be and it was my world that Logo was coming integrated into a computational environment. What seemed to be a problem to be solved into. by making a choice was dissolved when it became possible to have both. MicroWorlds There was an air of excitement then. Logo goes much further by bringing into a Logo environment many more features that Mindstorms had just been published. New have been poles of attraction away from Logo. Among these are drawing in the style of versions of Logo were being developed for KidPix, buttons in the style of HyperCard, and the multi-processing that is exploited when small computers that were finding their spreadsheets are used as tools for wider uses than financial planning. way into classrooms. Increasing the speed and memory size of affordable computers allowed a dramatic Now, 13 years later, there is a similar expansion of what could be done with Logo. But is this trend simply one of throwing in excitement in the Logo world. Again, a the kitchen sink, or is there also a systematic development of ideas and perspectives? new book by Seymour Papert is on the Some years ago I addressed a similar problem by using a well-known story of three verge of publication. In this issue of Logo blind men and an elephant as a parable for the multiphcity of facets of computers in Update, Carol Sperry reviews The general and Logo in particular. Here I shall use a new twist on the story to address the Children' s Machine and also looks back at question: Was the direction of Logo's growth governed by rational considerations or the Mindstorms. whim of designers? A flurry of activity from Logo software You probably know the original story: One of the blind men touched the ear and said developers has resulted in the recent release an elephant is a curtain; the second touched the leg and announced that an elephant is a of several new versions of Logo. More are huge pillar; and the third touched the tail and said, "No, no, it's a small snake." on the way. Beginning on page 4 you fill The story allows us to cast the question about the integrity of Logo as: Where's the find descriptions of the Logo products elephant? As teachers we might well worry: in our desire to show children many ways offered by six companies. to use the computer are we missing the wood for the trees? A hunch about how to pin down There are three Logo Conferences being my thoughts about this dilemma led me to browse at a number of books. Some were held this summer. The annual EuroLogo (cont. on pg. 13) Conference will be in Athens in August. * I am sometimes introduced as "the father of Logo." The aspect of parenthood of which I am (cont. on pg. 2) really proud is not conceiving the idea in the first place, but staying with Logo and participating supportively in its development — as a father should. page 2 Logo Foundation Sound Mathetic Advice-" Look for Connections!" 250 West 57lh Street by Carol Sperry New York, NY 10107-2603 Telephone: (212) 765-4918 The next best thing to a leisurely chat with Seymour Papert is reading his new book. The FAX: (212) 765-4789 Children's Machine: Rethinking School in the Age of the Computer. Papert, a longtime Board of Directors "yeamer," as he describes those of us who long for diverse, exciting, and personal ways Seymour Papert, Chair to learn, talks about the inevitable inviability of School, which he capitalizes to separate Tessa R. Harvey the institution from the more natural "school" of life. He criticizes School's adherence to Michael Tempel a hierarchical structure and a reluctance to adapt to individual, organic styles of learning The Logo Foundation is a nonprofit which value diverse interests, needs, and styles. educational organization incorporated Papert continues the conversation started more than ten years ago in his classic in New York State. Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas, which, more than any other Logo Update is published three times book, influenced those of us teaching at the time to think deeply about computers in yearly by the Logo Foundation. education. We were invited and encouraged to investigate how technology could Subscription is free. profoundly change our ways of relating to learning and teaching. I read Mindstorms during an introductory course on computers taught by Papert and his colleagues at the © 1993 Logo Foundation You may copy and distribute this document New York Academy of Sciences in 1981. That course mirrored the philosophy under• for educational purposes provided that you scored in the book — participants discussed powerful ideas, imaginations soared, and do not charge for such copies and that this notions of constructionist learning took on palpable life through our work with Logo. ccpyright notice is reproduced in full. Mindstorms continues to touch teachers and parents, from its beautifully wrought Forward — where we learn about the toddler Papert in love with gears — through the explorations of Logo thinking. Papert's genius lies in his ability to express complex, Logo Tool Box affective, and cognitive ideas in a manner that resonates with deep feelings held by many teachers. These feelings have, of course, to do with our abilities to learn and facilitate Here are two Logo tools that may be learning, but extend in a quite natural way to a sense of self-worth and confidence in our used in many different projects. own instincts. For many of us, and probably for many of you reading this newsletter today, The Pause That Refreshes our lives as teachers, inseparable from who we are, were never quite the same after There are times when you want your Mindstorms. Logo program to print some information, In The Children's Machine, Papert, the consummate bricoleur. builds on his previous wait for the reader to read it, and then go work and pulls together many ongoing themes that permeate his thinking. He reminds us on to the next part of your program. In (cont. on pg. 10) many versions of Logo you can wait a (Welcome... cont. frompg. 1) specified amount of time, but this isn't During July there will be a gathering in Australia, where there has long been an active really what you want, since some people Logo community. read faster than others. Here's a pair of The VI International Logo Conference will be held in Caracas, Venezuela in September. procedures that cause Logo to pause This conference is held once every two years in a different Latin- American country. This until a key is pressed, and then continue; gives participants an opportunity to interact with educators involved in Logo projects in to pause the host country. In Venezuela, a project which began in a few schools in 1989, has ignore readchar blossomed into a major nationwide effort. end The V International Logo Conference was held in San Josd, Costa Rica where the comprehensive, Logo-based Computers in Education Program has been underway since to ignore :anything 1988. The Costa Rican experience is described by Clotilde Fonseca in her article end beginning on page 3. This article is part of what will be a regular feature of Logo Update: "Putting Ideas into You might use pause like this; Action." In each issue, one or two classroom, school, or district Logo projects will be To show.off highlighted. In this premier issue, we start at opposite extremes of the scale: The national print [Here's a square.] project in Costa Rica is contrasted with Eadie Adam son' s description of her work with one repeat 4 [fd 60 rt 90] child in The Best Learning Is Play. print [Press any key.] Other regular features of Logo Update will include news about Logo users groups, pause workshops, and courses, and the Logo Tool Box. Carol Sperry's book reviews will appear print [Here's a star] in each issue. Finally, Seymour Papert's article Where's the Elephant? is the first in an repeat 5 [fd 80 rt 144] ongoing series of columns he will write for Logo Update, in which he will look at Logo end from a historical perspective. As is so frequently the case, Papert does more than shed light on the issues at hand. He redefines the terms of the discussion. Readchar causes Logo to wait for a Logo Update will also include a variety of items, such as Marian Rosen's Butfirslies, key to be pressed and then reports the which defy categorization. We encourage readers to submit articles that would be of character to ignore, which gobbles it up interest to Logo-using educators. and then does nothing else with it. So Logo Update will be a source of timely information and news; a collection of pointers why do we need ignore? Remove it to resources and other sources of support. One of these resources is the Logo Foundation (cont. on pg 6) itself. (com. on pg. 12) Logo Update { Spring 1993 page 3 Putting Ideas into Action National Transformation by Clotilde Fonseca Fabiana Alvarado is a 12 year old rural appreciated for what he does. At his young Rican society. When it was initiated, some school girl who, like 115,000 other Costa age, he already shows a talent for arch• important educational policy deter• Rican children in all areas of the country, itectural design. minations were made that defined the mode participates in the Computers in Education Mario, 9, learned to program the of implementation. Program. computer on paper. His sister Tania, 11, The decision was made to introduce Fabiana had never used computers prior taught him at home using her own notes computers first at the pre-school and to her joining the Program. Today she does after her computer lab sessions. When he elementary school levels. The nol use computers only in school. What is joined the class, to everyone's amazement, transformation of the educational process more, as she herself puts it: "I asked Santa Mario had exceptional command of the was to begin with the young, who are to bring me a computer for Christmas. My tool and was ready for quite complex generally more open and flexible. The father said we had no use for it. I convinced projects. objective behind this decision was to him that if I got it, I would take charge of his The Computers in Education Program contribute to the creation of a generation of business accounts." was created in 1988 by an initiative of Costa Rican children who are better Fabiana's father owns a small furniture President Oscar Arias Sanchez and his prepared to face the challenges of the future store in rural San Isidro del General. Her Minister of Education, Francisco Antonio and who are naturally familiar with family "saved and saved" so she could Pacheco. It is a joint effort carried out by computer technology and its applications have the computer, and she is presently in the Ministry of Public Education and the from an early age. This approach also charge of her father's accounting. Omar Dengo Foundation, a private implied a commitment to develop a similar The use of computers in school changed nonprofit organization created in 1987 to program for the secondary level in the Diego's personality. Timid and insecure, contribute to the improvement of education short term. 12 year old Diego refused to appear in in Costa Rica. From the beginning, the Program was public or participate in school activities. The aim of the Program is to contribute designed to bridge out from the schools' Today, he says the computer has reassured to the improvement of the teaching and educationalactivities into the communities him, made him more secure because he is learning process and to modernize Costa where the computer labs arc located in (com. on pg. 11) The Best Learning Is Play by Eadie Adamson

If it is true, as Sylvia Weir said, that mischief, excitement, and delight in the progressed from deriving the angles for learning disabled children show us "a world around him. polygons and writing procedures with magnified, slowed-down view" of learning Seb had already been identified as an variables to writing a generalized polygon (I), the experience of working with an extraordinarily gifted child. Possessing procedure. Seb's progress was like that of exceptionally gifted child shows us learning strong talents in every academic area, the a mathematically adept adult learner, filled that is decidedly in the "fast forward" mode. strength which set him apart from his with lively curiosity abouthow things work. A mathematically gifted fourth grade classmates was mathematics. His parents, It was clear this was going to be an exciting student spent a year working with aware of his gifts and cognizant of the fact experience for us both! LogoWriter as a substitute for mathematics that the home atmosphere can influence a While working with the polygons, Seb class. For the teacher this work was a child's intellectual development, provided rather playfully repeated a septagon challenging and exciting collaboration. For a great deal of intellectual stimulus at home multiple times. To our surprise, the figure the student it was a year in which intellectual and maintained a keen interest in Seb's began to change ever so slightly. One of the challenge, playfulness, and pursuit of progress. The challenge for me was to lines began to thicken, indicating that the knowledge turned in new directions. The provide a substitute for math class: an calculation of the angle for the turn had to activities pursued in this onc-on-one year intellectually stimulating year of work with be off by a very small number. As the of study give us a glimpse into Logo-based Logo. We met for about an hour every process continued to run, the distortion of learning distinguished by playful inquiry morning during his class's math time. In the form increased gradually. This led to a and rapid progress. addition Seb had a Logo class that met discussion of the importance of accuracy "Seb" had been accelerated and was a weekly, with a second class period on and situations in which such a small year younger than the rest of his fourth alternate weeks. As Seb began working on differencecould be significant. Seb wanted grade class. Seb is one of those children projects with me, he often used the class to see what would happen if the septagon who is comfortable with his peers yet time to pursue his ideas, generously sharing continued. How much off course would it capable of conversing on an adult level. what he learned with intcrestedclassmates. go? What would it look like? Would it ever When I observed him playing in the come back to where it started? We set up an classroom, the sophistication disappeared We began with Logo geometry. To my experiment on the computer and let it run and he was a typical youngster, full of astonishment, during that first session Seb (cont. on pg. 8)

Logo Update / Spring 1993 page 4 Logo Software Sources

Six companies that distribute software computer via an interface box. interact with the world around them. in the United States and Canada have LEGO Dacta's original computer- • MicroWorlds Project Builder includes provided Logo Update with these controlled product is LEGO TC Logo for student and teacher materials that descriptions of their products. Apple II and MSDOS computers. The more highlight all the new features of the recently released LogoWriter Robotics^ MicroWorlds software and present Harvard Associates uses the same LEGOelements and computer project ideas that were technologically 10 Holworthy Street interface, but the software combines all of difficult to execute with previous Cambndge, MA 02138 LCSI'sLogoWr//er with theoriginal LEGO software packages-both Logo and 800 776-4610 TC Logo software. non-Logo products. MicroWorlds Harvard Associates has developed PC The new Control Lab^ for Macintosh Project Builder gives students the Logo^ for MSDOS computers. The and MSDOS computers uses 9-volt motors, opportunity to create projects that recently released version 4.0 includes a lamps, and sound elements, along with include the types of features to which number of enhancements; angle, temperature, light, and touch sensors. they've become accustomed through The software features a Setup page for • EGA and VGA graphics are supported. video games and other media. testing motor, lamp, sound, and sensor • There is an on-line help system. connections; project pages with tools for • MicroWorlds Language Art, buiit on creating interactive buttons and sliders to • PC Logo now uses the standard PCX the same core software, is for teachers control the model, and for integrating who wish to use technology to enhance graphics format so that graphics can graphs, text, pictures, and sensor monitors their language arts curriculum. The on- be transferred between Logo and other into documentation. There is a Procedure disk materials and documentation programs. page for writing and editing procedures, focus on encouraging students to - • • A mouse is not required, but can be and a Command Center for carrying out explore words, text, form and the used. commands and running procedures. images these words and text evoke. Control Lab is suited for secondary • You can create as many turtles as you technology education students. Activities • MicroWorlds Math Links is for want and change their shapes, colors, include a lift bridge, a robot arm, a teachers who support the NCTM and the speeds at which they draw. greenhouse, and a color bar code reader. Standards for Teaching Mathematics. There is also a version of PC Logo for use * * * The on-disk materials and documentation focus on linking math with the Microsoft Windows operating Logo Computer Systems Inc. system. In addition to the features described to different curriculum areas and PO Box 162 suggest projects that students may not^ 2A)0\t,PCLogoforWindows™ has separate Highgate Springs, VT 05460 windows for commands, graphics, editing, perceive as mathematical but that 800 321-5646 encourage mathematical thinking. and debugging. You can position them Logo Computer Systems Inc. (LCSl) anywhere you like. develops and markets a line of educational The MicroWorlds family of products are Data and graphics can be exchanged products based on the Logo philosophy. It available for color Macintosh computers. with other Windows programs and you can has been a leading producer of Logo * * * integrate Windows API functions and language products worldwide beginning Paradigm Software, Inc. multimedia into your Logo programs. with App/c Logo™ in 1981. Since then the PO Box 2995 A user guide which includes both a company has developed over twenty-five Cambridge, MA 02238 reference and a tutorial accompanies PC versions of Logo, including LogoWritertS', 617 576-7675 Logo. Harvard Associates also distributes which is available in eleven languages and Paradigm Software's Logo™ is a a library of additional Logo books and is used around the world. very powerful and sophisticated version of materials. PC Logo is also available in During the last three years, LCSl has Logo with appeal to both beginning and French and Spanish. been working with a team of educators led advanced users, with extensive math, • • ' * ' * * ^ by Dr. Seymour Papert, to design and graphics, robotics, and development LEGODacta develop a completely new Logo-based capabilities. 555 Taylor Road learning environment that will let students Object Logo takes full advantage of the Enfield, CT 06082 control the computer even more easily than Macintosh user interface, including pull• 800 527-8339 before. This collaboration has led to the down menus, multiple windows and the LEGO Dacta, the educational division of development of the MicroWorlds family of availability of more than 16 million colors. LEGO Systems, Inc., has developed products, which includes MicroWorlds Its math package features true fractional products that combine LEGO® elements Language Art™ , MicroWorlds Project arithmetic, complex numbers, and a full with versions of the Logo programming Builder™ , and MicroWorlds Math Links™. complement of trigonometric and language. Students build working models The design of these products reflects the logarithmic functions. using LEGO bricks, gears, motors, and underlying Logo philosophy that learners The turtle graphics include an infinite sensors and connect their models to a are builders of their own knowledge as they number of turtles, each capable of having

Logo Update I Spring 1993 page 5 its own characteristics and responding to • Graphics created using other programs • A First Course in Prograniniing™ for its own collections of Logo procedures. can be imported into Logo. grades 9-12, a complete one-semester Object Logo's unique object-oriented course in structured programming • A wide variety of graphics cards and environment reduces programming lime using Logo. and enhances the understanding of creating printers are supported. •101 Ideas for Logo™ for grades 3- modular programs. Some of its built-in • Users can define their own Logo adult, for use with any version of objects include turtles, windows, menus, primitives in C or assembly language Logo. and timers, all of which can be created and and incorporate them into WIN-LOGO. controlled with Logo programs. You can Terrapin also offers Terrapin Robotics™, WIN-LOGO comes with both a full also create your own objects with the a robotics interface and kit for Macintosh, reference guide and a user manual. characteristics you choose. Apple II, and MSDOS computers. It works Softeast Corporation will soon be Object Logo includes a compiler, which with a variety of popular construction kits, releasing a version of WIN-LOGO for the allows Logo programs to run faster. including LEGO and Fischer Technics, Microsoft Windows operating system. Compiled programs may also become and is appropriate for explorations in * • * stand-alone applications that can be run robotics for learners of any age. • independent of Logo. Terrapin Software, Inc. In addition to a 480-page reference 400 Riverside Street manual. Object Logo comes with a Portland, ME 04103 Two Other Resources: comprehensive 200-page tutorial called 800 972-8200 ISTE Logo for the Macintosh, written by Hal and Terrapin Software, Inc. provides Logo 1787 Agate Street Amanda Abelson. Based on Hal Abelson's languages and Logo-based curriculum Eugene, OR 97403-1923 1982 book Logo for the Apple II, it makes materials for all popular computers. 503 346-4414 Object Logo accessible to learners with Terrapin focuses on the use of Logo in The International Society for Tech• little or no prior Logo experience. learning mathematics and programming nology in Education publishes many Paradigm has also developed the Pearl by continuously updatingour software with books and periodicals on the uses of Controller™ . an interface that allows you carefully selected additions to the classic technology in education. These include to use the Apple II or MSDOS LEGO TC Logo language, and by offering an array of the Logo Exchange, a quarterly journal, Logo systems with your Macintosh and curriculum materials for a wide range of and a dozen Logo books. ISTE also Object Logo. The Pearl Controller ships ages and subject areas. supports SlGLogo, a special interest with a LEGO TC Logo emulator, a Terrapin publishes Terrapin Logo™ for group for Logo-using educators. HyperCard stack, and a development Macintosh, Apple II, and Commodore 64 * * * environment giving you the same computers, mdLogoPLVS™ for the Apple CLIME commands as in the original LEGO TC II. We also offer PC Logo for MSDOS 10 Bogert Avenue Logo software. You can also access sensors computers. While Plains, NY 10606 from the menubar, and it is possible to Terrapin's comprehensive and growing 914 946-5143 connect as many as 16 LEGO interface collection of materials helps teachers The Council for Logo in Mathematics boxes to a single computer. integrate Logo into their existing curricula. Education is an affilliate of the National These books and disk-based materials * * * Council of Teachers of Mathematics. include Softeast Corporation CLlME's mission is to support and Knox Trail Office Building • Kinderlogo™ for grades PreK-3, a set encourage the use of Logo in mathe• 2352 Main Street of single-keystroke programs for matics education. The organization Concord, MA 01742 young and special learners. publishes a newsletter and the CLIME 508 897-3172 Microworlds --collections of Logo Softeast Corporation distributes WIN- • Logo Works™ for grades 4-8. a first programs and tools. (The CLIME LOGO™, a version of Logo for MSEKDS course in Logo that focuses on Microworlds are distributed by the Logo computers that uses a windows-like fundamental geomeuy concepts. Foundation as well as by CLIME.) graphical interface and pull-down menus. • Logo Project Book™ for fifth graders WIN-LOGO has windows, or "areas" for to adult learners, with lessons and Workshop graphics, text, commands, debugging, and projects for learning about words and help. These windows can be resized and lists. LCSl invites you to learn more about repositioned using a mouse or the keyboard. its newest product This is accomplished without the need for • Logo Probability™ for grades 5-10. a the Microsoft Windows operating system. Logo-based lab for exploring topics in MircoWorlds Project WIN-LOGO requires MSEXJS. probability and statistics. Builder™ WIN-LOGO also has these features: • Logo Math™ for grades 6-12. a by attending one of the free hands-on • There are 12 turtles, which can comprehensive set of tools and games workshops being held June 10 and June change shape and color, and draw in for secondary mathematics learning. 15 in Edison, New Jersey. different pen widths. For more information 8(X) 321-5646

Logo Update I Spring 1993 page 6 Logo Users Groups Starting a Logo by Michael Tempel, Carolina Goodman, & Jane Hirsch Users Group by Carolina Goodman New York~The New York Logo Users Group was started in 1989 by Michael Tempel and Eadie Adamson. In the beginning there was no elaborate plan for the group, just a What a delight it is to share experiences, shared feeling among Logo-using teachers that they wanted to get together regularly to projects, techniques, theories, and exchange ideas and concerns. philosophies with other Logo teachers. The first meeting was held at the Allen Stevenson School in New York City, where We decided to meet every other month. Eadie was teaching at the time. We decided to meet on the second Tuesday of every other The same day and time (e.g. third month. The Computer School in New York City School District 3 agreed to host the Wednesday of the month 4:(X)pm-6:00pm) meetings. made it easy to remember. We took turns We had a regular time and place, but not much structure or content. The first few hosting the meeting. Here are some ideas meetings tended to be rather loose combinations of exchanges of technical information, for starting your own interest group. announcements of conferences, workshops, and new product releases, sharing of ideas, and open discussions. How to Organize that First Meeting We have tried different meeting formats. One month we had a hands-on workshop using Be sure to have good snacks and drinks. Logo to explore circles. It was valuable, but uncomfortably rushed in the short two-hour A computer lab with an LCD monitor is a time frame of our meetings. Another meeting was devoted entirely to an informal good place. Have a sign up sheet and conversation with Seymour Papert. name lags available. Designate someone Over time, a more orderly format emerged. The focal point for the meetings has become to keep notes. A roster and minutes are presentations by one or two teachers of their classroom Logo projects. Each presenter helpful. usually provides a written hand-out and often a disk of Logo programs for members to take Begin by sitting in a circle and have away. people introduce themselves-where and Some of the presented projects have been published.* Laura Allen's Cityscapes, Tom what they teach, and what they hope to Trocco's Egyptian Hieroglyphics, and Orlando Mihich's African Textiles are Logo accomplish in the Users Group. It would Foundation Publications. Orlando's work has also been described in articles in Logo be great to have one person ready to share Exchange and Logo Link. a project or some information in a formal During the current school year we decided to hold the meetings at different schools, way. Our first meeting focused on looking often with the hosting teachers, and sometimes students, making presentations. The at LogoWriter on the Mac LC. presented changeof location allows members to see diffcrcntcomputcrlabs and school environments. by a math teacher. The last part of the There have been several spin-offs from the New York Logo Users Group. During the meeting is a great time to do informal spring 1992 semester and again this spring, some Users Group members have participated problem solving with specific questions in an on-going Logo Seminar with Michael Tempel acting as facilitator. The seminars are from individuals — or to break up into devoted to developing Logo skills in the context of individual projects. The focus is more grade level groups to create a project to (com. on pg. 9) take back to class. * See page 14 for more information about these projects. (cont. on pg. 10)

(Tool Box continued from page 2) from the pause procedure and you'll see.

Pick of the Letter Here's a procedure that's so useful, it ought to be a primitive. (Maybe it is a primitive in ytxir version of Logo.) Pick randomly picks an item from a list.

To pick : 1st . . output item 1 + random count :1st :1st end ......

You can flip a coin print pick [H T] or roll a pair of dice print (pick [12 3 4 5 6]) + (pick [123456; or roll a pair of loaded dice print (pick [1 233345 6]) + (pick [1 2 3 4 4 4 5 6]) or pick a random letter from the alphabet print pick "abcdefghi jklmnopqrstuvwxyz

(Pick works on words as well as lists)

If you pick three letters and make a word out of them, how likely is it that you'll come up with a specific word, say "cat." Read Mitchel Resnick's Logo Overnight^ to learn more about this and other random fun. A

*Resnick, Mitchel Logo Overnight Logo Foundation, NY 1993

Logo Update / Spring 1993 page 7 VI International Logo Congress September 20-23, 1993-Caracas. Venezuela

Call for Participation Since 1989, acomputers in education projectbasedonaconstructionist methodology has been developing in Venezuela. usingLogo as one of its main tools. The choice of Caracas as the site for the VI International Logo Congress provides participants with a unique opportunity to share experiences with teachers and children who have worked in this project in Venezuelan schools.

Objectives of the Congress • To exchange experiences, research results, and proposals on the introduction of computers into the educational system. • To analyze the achievements, advancements and difficulties of nation-wide, regional or individual school projects using Logo as the main platform.

Central Themes • Developmentof nation-wide, regional, or individual school projects. • Strategies and alternatives in teacher education. ,T ...... • Use of Logo in the development of language skills, mathematical reasoning, and a scientific attitude. • Perspectives on the use of computers with pre-school children. - ' • Technology in education from a constructionist perspective: a new alternative for special education? • Alternative methods of project evaluation. • Telecommunications in education, a tool to develop projects in constructionist environments. • Technological and pedagogical advancements with Logo. ~

Special Guest Speakers Boris Berenfeld, TERC, USA Lea Fagundes, Univ. Federal Do Rio Grande Do Sul, Brazil Clotilde Fonseca, Fundacion Omar Dengo, Costa Rica Seymour Papert, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

Participation VI Congrcso Logo is for educators, education students and specialists in technology in education. Participation may be as part of the audience or through a presentation of a paper about: Research: Work in which the scientific method has been used to determine the direct or indirect effects of factors associated with experiences in the use of technology in educational contexts. Experiences: Presentations of accomplishments, difficulties, and issues in developing projects that use Logo as their main platform. Proposals: Presentation of ideas, or potential projects that constitute creative and innovative contributions to the use of technology in education.

Spanish to English translation will be available during the main presentations.

Submission of Papers Authors.are encouraged to submit a one-page summary presenting the basic contents of their work. Include you name, title, institution, and the theme or themes covered by the paper. Presentations may be made in Spanish or English. Papers should be sent to the address listed below.

Deadline Papers must be submitted by June 30, 1993. Authors will be notified of acceptance by July 30,1993.

Site

The Congress will take place at Universidad Metropolitana, in Caracas, Venezuela.

Costs Registration: US$ 100 (US$70 for students) Accommodations: Rates are US$29 to US$184 per night for a single room, depending upon the hotel. Doubles and suites are available at a lower cost per person. Additional information will be sent upon request. Use this address to submit papers, to request a registration form, and for further information about accommodations: VI International Logo Congress c/o Logo Foundation ' ' 250 West 57th Street, Suite 2603 New York City, NY 10107 Tel: 212 765-4918 Fax 212-765-4789 Email: [email protected]

Logo Update I Spring 1993 page 8 When we worked on tessellations, Seb average student a long time to complete (Best Learning... cont. from pg. 3) first drew a figure which he planned to use were explored and solved with dispatch. all day. Seb took on the task of determining to fill the plane. Then, using a single This affected how 1 could plan what we how many times it would be necessary to variable, he proceeded to develop a would do. I needed always to he prepared repeat the procedure so that the experiment procedure to draw the shape. I watched to see quick solutions and to he ready to could run over an entire weekend. astonished as he programmed the procedure discuss new ideas. Sometimes, however, I asked Seb to devise a way to build a itself without the usual moves back and Seb'sintellectualcuriosity led him topursue triangular stack of regular triangles. Seb forth from the editor to the screen. He was a project in greater depth, with more was clearly a strong visual thinker and his moving and turning the turtle in his head, persistence over a longer time than analysis of the form was different from amazingly managing to keep track of its expected. This happened first when we what I had intended. Rather than looking at position through many twists and turns, worked with Cartesian coordinates. He the shape as a series of small triangles using division and multiplication of the created a beautiful symmetrical design and building up, he worked from the outside in, variable, and having no need to try it out then was challenged to plot the points. 1 seeing a large outer triangle first, then with the turtle firsti His visual sense was gave him a tool procedure to help him with another smaller one upside down, and so clearly very highly developed. Perhaps this this, expecting he would tire of the process on. The end result, of course, is the same as is why working with the Logo turtle was before the plotting of this long series of if he had begun with a single small triangle. particularly compelling for him. points was completed. To my surprise, he In the procedure he also u.scd multiplication Here is a fragment of the completed worked steadily on it for two sessions, and anddivision of the variable for size, keeping design, which is created from a single spent several more embellishing the design. the number constant. The project presented variable for size: a meaningful context for looking at a recursive process. Seb wrote another version of a triangular stack that look an input for the base number of U-iangles and another for the size of each triangle. Again his playfulness with numbers was demonstrated as he experimented with large base numbers and very small sizes, working until he could find a set of numbers that made a stack reaching from the bottom to the lop of the screen without wrapping.

1993 European

Logo Conference to plot :list Athens, Greece if empty? :list [STOP] At times I supplied Seb with problems to setpos first :list August 28-31, 1993 solve on his own. Working from the plot butfirst :list Appendix of Phil Lewis's book (2) Seb Main theme: end explored writing mathematical functions Logo-like learning environments: in Logo, solving problems such as reflection and prospects. to design conversions to and from the metric system. plot [ [-20 20] (-10 20] Principal speakers include: After working on procedures for [-30 30][-20 30][-20 40] Eric deCortc transformation of FahrenheittoCelsius and [-10 30] [-10 40] [-30 60] Andrea diSessa its reverse, I challenged Seb to make a [-20 60] [-40 80] [-40 90] Brian Harvey graphic illustration of temperatures. Seb [-20 60] [-20 70] [-10 70] Celia Hoyles created a project with two thermometers. [-10 60][0 60][-10 90] Richard Noss Hisprojec t used the functions he had written. [10 90][0 60][10 60] The program would take a Fahrenheit [10 70][20 70] [20 60] For more information contact: temperature as input, draw and label the [40 90] [40 80] [20 60] ' Triaena Congress two thermometers, and color in the correct ....and on and on.... 24 Harilaou Trikoupi Sir temperature level. His playful spirit showed Athens, 106 79 Greece again as Seb became much amused by Seb was like a sponge, eager to soak up Phone: -^30 I 3609511-15, using numbers that sent the "mercury" every new idea. Toward the end of the year, +30 1 3609552 bursting through the lops of the for a report on the solar system, Seb decided Telex: 218256 thermometers. to create an animation of a meteor orbiting Fax: +30 I 360 7962 * * • a satellite, a tough problem. Seb worked on email: [email protected] perfecting this elliptical orbit for well over I found work with Seb continually a week. The project led us to discuss kinds surprising. Problems that might take an (Cont. on pg. 10) Logo Update / Spring 1993 page 9 practice their presentation "Trans• (Logo Users Groups cont. from pg 6) assisted Molly and Dan Watt in offering The Logo Institute in 1988. (Hello, formational Geometry: From Man- on teachers' own knowledge of Logo than ASTROLUG. are you still there?) Jane ipulatives to Logo," which they gave at on classroom implementation. University Hirsch. one of the attendees from the West ICTE. We also had an opportunity to look graduate credit is available for those who Coast, took home the idea of a Logo Users at a new version of Logo for MS-DOS want to pursue it. Group, gestated it for five years, and has at computers called WIN-LOGO by Softeast Two additional users groups have been last seen it come into existence in Los Corporation. formed from NYLUG. The Long Island Angeles. On the "off months, we have met with Logo Users Group was initiated by one of initial discussions centered around what a local section of the California Mod Tech our members, Marylin Tahl, to accommo• our expectations were and how we could Consortium. Mod Tech is the support group date teachers in the eastern suburbs of New telecommunicate. Logo Express seemed for CORE, the state-wide network set up York City who find it difficult to manage the most natural vehicle, but not all of us through the State University system. While the commute into town. In addition to its had it. We can also use CORE, the free these meetings are devoted to regular meetings, LILUG also spionsored a network open to all teachers in California. telecommunications, their discussions and Logo seminar for interested members. At our first meeting, Mike Sewell of workshops cover the full range of topics Another NYLUG member, Mark Mirman School highlighted the features of from the latest hardware and software to Steinberger, felt that we should also be Macintosh LogoWriter and shared some of computer coordinator issues. CORE has a looking at software that is in the Logo the projects he and his students have gateway to Internet, and we were delighted spirit, even if it isn't Logo. No one could developed in math, including one they to find a useful Logo newsgroup— think of a name for the group, so the flyers developed for graphing. COMP.LANG.LOGO. Brian Harvey's went out announcing the formation of :Ne w At the second meeting Allan Hancock of UCBLogo is available on line! Users Group. One meeting was devoted to Berkeley Hall School presented many The LA Logo Users Group is eager to sharing HyperStudio projects. Simulation wonderful lesson ideas for elementary expand its membership. All are welcome! software was the topic at another session. school students. One of the studentprojects Contact; Carolina Goodman There was plenty of discussion about just was using a PICK procedure to explore Campbell Hall what "Logo-like" software is. and when forming 3-letter combinations. Allan's 4533 Laurel Canyon Blvd. and why software other than Logo should students enjoyed another use of random in North Hollywood, CA 91607 be used. a racing game. 818 505-9892 A The New YorkLogo Users Group seems Jane Hirsch gave a demonstration of to he solidly established, though it has no Object Logo which makes it possible to formal structure, just a mailing list. A control Macintosh objects, such as windows "member" is anyone who has shown up for and buttons, through Logo, and also to 1993 International at least one meeting and left a name and write a Logo program and then turn it into Logo Conference address for future notices-about 120 people a "stand alone" application that does not Melbourne Australia so far. There have been between 10 and 50 require Logo to run. There is also a robotics July 4-7, 1993 people at each meeting. The Logo Founda• interface for Object Logo and a lower-cost tion sends out the meeting announcements student version which includes a highly Keynote Speakers: for the group. If you want to "join" call or readable student manual written by Harold Idit Harel & Barry Newell write with your name and address, or better and Amanda Abelson. For more information contact: yet, just show up at the next meeting: After these presentations, there was Methodist Ladies' College Logo Users Group Meeting informal teaching and sharing of ideas, and 207 Barkers Road Tuesday, June 8,1993 spirited discussions of the relative virtues Kew, Victoria 3101 Australia Spence School of a planned computer curriculum versus Telephone: 03 274 6412 22 East 91st St. (htwn 5th &. Madison) letting children's skills evolve on a more FAX: 03 819 2345 New York City individualized basis. Email: [email protected] Call 212 765-4918 for more information Two members of our group have written * * * Logo books (not yet published). Linda Jones Los Angeles-A Logo Users Group was of California State University, Northridge, started in Los Angeles in November 1991. wrote one for a Logo course she teaches to It is currently a small but dedicated group preservice teachers. Lookfor Linda's 1993 of public and private school Logo teachers science text Engaging Students In Science who meet every other month. The formation published by Merrill-Mac Mi lian, which of the group was motivated by a feeling includes Logo activities. Dave Kressen that Logo teachers need to carve out time to presented his rough draft on advanced Logo share ideas with each other and to learn for middle school at the March 1993 from and support each other. International Conference for Technology The idea for organizing our group came in Education at MIT. (You can contact him partly from a similar group on the opposite through PacificOaksCollege in Pasadena.) coast, ASTROLUG (Albany Schenectady Carolina Goodman and Owen Roberts Troy Logo Users Group) whose members used part of a Logo Users Group meeting to

Logo Update I Spring 1993 page 10 see another way to do this?" and show him (Best Learning... com, from pg. 8) • Several commercial electronic a recursive procedure to generate a fractal. networks, including CompuServe, of curvatures, headings, positions, and Seb went on from this to alter the procedure have Logo forums. methods to test that the meteor was so that it drew fractal "bumps" for triangles, • Contact the local colleges and following the same track with each pentagons and hexagons. university Educational Technology "rotation." The progress of a very bright young professors to pass the information student woiking with Logo resembles an along in pre-service or in-service adept adult in the speed of learning. What classes. distinguishes the child learner is the playful Make an assignment at the first meeting inquiry into ideas. Adults have learned, that each person bring someone new to the sadly, to leave this spirit of play behind. next meeting! Teachers need to allow the student time to If you would like more information or be playful as they explore new ideas. The assistance in beginning your own Logo to orbit playful aspects of Logo are doorways Users Group, or if you have started one pu opening into new knowledge. Seb's journey which you would like to tell us about, setpos [178 68] during the year would not have been so contact: pd astonishing or so interesting without this Logo Foundation seth 50 . aspect of play which often led our 250 West 57th Street St investigations in new directions. It also New York, NY 10107-2603 repeat 15 [fd 1 rt .125] required tolerance from the teacher and a Phone: 212 765^918 fd 2 willingness to see this play as a necessary Fax:212 765-4789A repeat 10 [fd 2 rt 1.5] part of the learning process. Do any of us fd 4 rt 28.25 play enough any more? (Sound Mathetic ... cont. from pg. 2) repeat 3 [fd 2 rt 27] that, in spite of the power of the new fd 4 rt 28.25 References technologies to create "personal media repeat 10 [fd rt 1.5] (1) Weir, Sylvia. Cultivating Minds: A capable of supporting a wide range of repeat 3 5 fd rt .125] Logo Casebook. (Harper & Row, NY, intellectual styles," School has remained repeat 65 fd rt .125] 1987) pg. 5 static, rarely utilizing the ways we most fd 2 (2) Lewis. Philip G. Approaching naturally learn and insistingonacurriculum- repeat 10 [fd 2 rt 1.5] Precalculus Mathematics Discretely. bound base with its calculated number of fd 4 rt 28.25] (MIT Press, Cambridge, 1990) fixed items to be transmitted to the student. repeat 3 [fd 2 rt 27 This article is an excerpt from From Polygons to Avoiding the simplistic and flawed notion fd 4 rt 28.25 Functions to Orbits to Fractals, which is of computer as technological fix, Papert repeat 10 [fd .5} rt available from the Logo Foundation. A wonders at the expectations of those who repeat 20 fd 125] rt place computers in otherwise unchanged pu (Starting a Logo... cont. from pg. 6) classrooms. He warns that "dissatisfaction ht Where to Advertise within society at large is rapidly making it repeat 65 [fd 1 rt .125] Prepare an article, an ad, or a flyer with impossible to save education as we know it st pd a contact name and phone number. We by continuing to tinker around its edges." orbit advertised through several channels: He asks us to rethink our assumptions, to end • Our county superintendent of schools value multiple ways of knowing, and to has an office of technology that sends attend to the importance of bodies of When we turned to fractals, 1 began by mailings to all county schools. knowledge that draw on this country's drawing a single example of a "square" • The largest school district in the area, diversity. fractal, in which the center third of a line is Los Angeles Unified, included an ad in The publication of Mindstorms brought replaced by a square "hump." Seb quickly their technology newsletter. Papert an avalanche of letters from teachers, wrote a procedure with a variable to draw • The state computer teachers' and invitations to many schools put him the form. 1 drew for him a half-size version organization would be a great place for more solidly into their world. In The of the next "level" of the fractal. "I get it." an article or ad. They also have Children's Machine, he inveighs against he exclaimed, and programmed a procedure affiliate groups in the area that have School's attempts to make teachers into which used the first, cutting the variable in their own newsletters. technicians and honors teachers' efforts to half to build a second level. His excitement • Logo Link , Logo Update, Terrapin battle the system's hierarchical ways of built as he began to generate more and Times thinking about learning. The book is more levels, refusing attempts at • Check with LCSl for LogoExpress peppered with tales of formal and informal interruptions from me. With any learner hosts in the area. learning experiences, such as forays into there is an appropriate time to interject with • California has a free electronic "kitchen math"and the pedagogical lessons next ideas. Seb wanted no outside network through the State University of the general culture: Remember how intervention until he had pushed things to system. "Baby" learned to dance in the movie, the limit of his own tolerance. Eventually I • California also has a free electronic Dirty Dancing. We hear stories of teachers, was able to ask, "Now would you like to network through Fred-Mail. (Cont. on next pg.) Logo Update I Spring 1993 page 11

(Sound Mathetic... cont.) (National... cont. from pg. 3) school cultures, and even the saga of an order to contribute to the socio-economic development of different areas of the country entire country's cooperative effort to help and to reduce the generation gap which might result from intensive computer use teachers and community appropriate exclusively by the young. In the evenings, the school computer labs are used by adults technology and the shift in educational who are learning to use word processing, spread sheets, data base, and other software. philosophy that such a move warrants. The Program has a broad geographical basis. In order to provide equal opportunities As in any conversation, Papert shares to children in all area of the country, priority has been given to rural and inner city many of his own learning experiences with schools. us and seems, in that action, to ask us to In most schools, there is a laboratory containing 20 computers with color monitors, revisit our own most potent learning a printer, and a local network. Beginning in 1991 telephone lines and modems were experiences and find those moments that installed in order to connect the schools into a national telecommunications network. excited and moved us the most to learn. He This allows better technical and pedagogical support and provides the children with the might easily call this practice a mathetic benefits derived from national and international communications. concept, as he explains in an intriguing Students generally attend the lab for two40-minute periods per week, working in pairs chapter called "A Word for Learning." We at the computers. Teamwork and cooperation are fostered and interdisciplinai y projects need a name for the art of learning, he says, are encouraged. for our various collections of methods of Normally, ail the students in the school attend the sessions. They go to the lab in the learning. Papert resurrects the very good company of their classroom teacher. There they work with the support of a lab teacher, word he proposed in Mindstorms: mathetics. who is actually a classroom teacher herself working overtime in the lab. The laboratory At the heart of this chapter is Papert's own provides a time and place for exploration. story of how he learned to overcome his Students are introduced to the computer through the use of Logo. This powerful inability to remember names of even the educational tool was carefully selected to meet the Program's pedagogical objectives. most common flowers. This is a lovely and One of the central elements leading to the selection of Logo was the fact that it requires informative accountof an individualjourney the teacher's active involvement, not only in the command of the technology, but more of learning, of finding ways to learn. He important, in using his or her own potential to generate learning contexts—microworlds discovers a mathelic principle that works — for and with the students. powerfully for him — that of connecting Within the Program most lab activities are centered around educational projects what he calls a "hot" area — his love of defined jointly by the classroom teacher and the lab teacher. These projects are almost etymology, with a "cold" area — this always related to the children's curricular activity and are realized on the computer strange business of flower names. through the use of Logo. ;: -+ Papert's flower story illustrates what is Around these projects, children do research, plan, discuss ideas, and decide on the possible when we look at "learning as a characteristics of the specific concept they want to develop. They look to the teacher for dimension of life," and not as a School- support and guidance as to the computational or education tools needed to put it into bound activity. Our efforts to construct being. mathetically rich environments replete with An example of an interdisciplinary project is the study of the rain forest carried out by the exciting tools technology has to offer students in San Isidro de Perez Zeledon. Their studies took them to the forest and the could catapult our expressions of learning library. They interviewed scientists, government officials, and their neighbors. The into a humane, inclusive, joyous activity results of their investigations included models of volcanos. and collections of soil and that would satisfy even the most dissatisfied leaf samples as well as Logo projects that included charts and maps, and animations and Yeamers among us. • drawings of flora and fauna along with descriptions and poems. In 1991, students from several schools contributed colorful designs and drawings to a collection of Christmas cards that were distributed by the Omar Dengo Foundation. HyperStudio To Students in Limon share experiences and Logo projects with friends in New Brunswick, Include Logo Canada via telecommunication. * * * . . HyperStudio, a multimedia program From the beginning, teacher education has been the cornerstone of the Computers in originally designed for the Apple ligs, is Education Program. A group of twelve Ministry of Education teachers and professors being released in a Macintosh version. from the University of Costa Rica were selected to start the training program. These first This new version will include a "tutors" attended a three-week workshop in the winter of 1988 which was personally led programming language, and that by Seymour Papert. These tutors became the leaders in the training program and the core language is Logo! For more information element in the follow-up and support activities which constitute one of the central contact; building blocks of the project. Over the years, new tutors have joined. Some of them have their base in the different Roger Wagner Publishing regions they have been appointed to and are responsible for day-to-day support. 1050 Pioneer Way, Suite P In each school, the principal and two to four teachers are formally trained as lab El Cajon, CA 92020 teachers. Participation of the school administrator has been a crucial element in the 619 442-0522 Program's success. FAX: 619 442-0525 Teacher education is an ongoing process. Every year all lab teachers in the Program attend a two-week workshop. Special sessions are also offered to inform and involve (Cont. on pg. 12) Logo Update I Spring 1993 page 12

(National... cont. from pg. 11) and society. groups; and conferences. Our emphasis is Dr. Claudio Gutierrez, a researcher in the on projects with a long-term commitment classroom teachers. area of artificial intelligence and former to working with Logo. Professional The focus of the Program is on education President of the University of Costa Rica, development is an ongoing process. Check more than on technology. As a matter of has said about the Program and its teachers: the appropriate box on the Response Form fact, in the selection of lab teachers there is "I rejoice with you in the existence in Costa if you wish to receive more information no requirement as to previous computer Ricaof anon-directive educational program about these services. experience. What isessential is the teachers' based on computer science... Logochildren You should also use the Response Form interest in renewing methodology and their are discoverers . . . The teachers to request a subscription to Logo Update. openness to change. The teacher should accompanying them are not kings: the This first issue is being sent to over 50,()(X) have a certain mental framework to be able highest title to which they can aspire is the people. The Logo software companies to see him or herself as a facilitator and to honor of being called "baquianos" (which whose product descriptions appear inside be able to break away from the traditional means "pathfinders")... What a beautiful have generously provided their mailing "teacher as authority" concept. definition of the present day teacher!" lists for this purpose. We cannot afford In-service training and constant support Many Costa Rican teachers are slowly such a large mailing again. To continue to constitute the fundamental pillars of the starling to become facilitators and travel receive Logo Update you must request an Costa Rican Computers in Education companions — "baquianos" — in this ongoing subscription. This subscription is Program, and are carried out at a national exciting and demanding era of knowledge free of charge. level and in the various regions of the exploration and technological change. Finally, please consider making a country. To them, the computer may very well donation to the Logo Foundation. The An annual meeting of the Teachers of become a springboard for professional Foundation is a publicly supported, Educational Informatics is held yearly for development and personal change. For the nonprofit organization. Individual the purpose of expanding teachers' children, as Fabiana, Diego. Mario, and contributions are an important part of our knowledge of the field and allowing them Tania very well show, this process has funding and enable us to continue our to exchange ideas and concerns. In 1991, already begun. • service to Logo-using educators. All this annual meeting became an intemational contributions are tax deductible. conference which was planned to coincide (Welcome... cont. from pg. 2) Thank you for your support. We look with the 5th Intemational Logo Conference forward to serving you in the future. A held in Costa Rica in November 1991. The Foundation was created in 1991 when In addition, since 1989, the program two companies, Logo Japan and Logo Valiant Turtles hosts an annual Children's Computers in Computer Systems, provided start-up funding Can Come Out of Storage Education Conference. In this activity and asked Seymour Papert to create a school children from all over the country nonprofit organization devoted to supporting For many years. Valiant Technology. meet to present the premier projects Logo. Ltd., of London, England, produced a developed in their schools during the school As we worked to define the collection of robot turtle foruse with various versions term. The projects prepared for each activities that would carry out that mandate, of Logo. Until recently, service for conference are guided by an overall theme two broad categories emerged. these creatures was hard to come by in such as Science and Technology, Human First, the Foundation is a source of North America. Now Valiant has a Rights, and Sustainable Development. publications about Logo, including this distributor in the United States. So, if The Costa Rican Computers in newsletter. We distribute books from selected you havean injured Valiant Turtle that's Elementary Education Program is the result publishers; research reports; descriptions of been sitting in storage, you may be able of much planning and effort on the part of classroom, school, and district projects; and to revive it. Costa Rican intellectuals, politicians, and collections of Logo tools. Often, articles in Contact: educators. The Program selected a model Logo Update will be pointers to larger Valiant Technology of introducing computers that is "teacher- documents. For example, the Logo 188 Industrial Drive centered" in the sense that it relies on the Foundation distributes Computadoras en la Elmhurst, IL 60126 talents and enthusiasm of teachers for its Escuela P&blica Cosiarricense, Clotilde 800 552-9869 success. The positive response of the Costa Fonseca's book about the Computers in Rican educators has been the cornerstone Education Program of Costa Rica, as well as of the Program's success. Those teachers a brief video tape about the project. Eadie have accepted the challenge of opening up Adamson's article is an excerpt from her to information technology and attempting paper From Polygons to Functions to Orbits to change and enrich an otherwise obsolete to Fractals, a Logo Foundation publication. educational system. If you wish to receive the complete list of The CostaRican Computers in Education Logo Foundation publications, check the Program is characterized by "a sense of appropriate box on the Response Form at the mission," as Dr. Seymour Papert has staled. end of this newsletter. The Program's focus is beyond the scope Second, the Logo Foundation provides of technology: it aims at the gradual direct support services for educators including transformation of Costa Rican education workshops, courses, and seminars; Logo users

Logo Update I Spring 1993 page 13

(... Elephant? cont. from pg. 1) obviously relevant: books about computers, about education, and about putting the two Butfir Sties together. by Marian Rosen The critical logician in me fell a little silly when the associationist bricoleur in me reached for Robert Dehort's The Life and Lore of the Elephant and Why Animals Have I was sitting in a workshop at a Tails. "It's just a metaphor, stupid!" said the logical me. "Real elephants have nothing to national convention and 1 was angry. do with this!" But the bricoleur won, for the trail led me to see the connection between The topic was the teaching of Logo ears, legs, and tails in a deeper light than I had before. And it turned the story into a much and we hadn' t had one good laugh all better metaphor for parts and wholes of understanding. day. I began playing a game I used to Why does the elephant have such big floppy ears? Last month I would have said, "Must play when I was bored in school. I have to do with how and what the elephant hears." No doubt, but I learned something else start with a combination of letters from Robert Dehort's lovely book. Because an elephant has so much more volume than such as 'unk and prefix it with surface area it has a hard time dissipating heat and the big floppy ears contribute by serving consonants or blends... bunk, funk, as radiators. I suddenly imagined the blind man exclaiming as he touched the leg: "Gee, gunk, junk, clunk, stunk, etc. Propers there's not enough skin here to blow off the heat from all the muscles in this leg I bet names are allowed. I've never been this thing has big floppy ears." able to find a letter clump that makes The smallness of the tail can also be connected with the bigness of the legs. If you look more words than "ail," but I keep at a dinosaur or a cat you will see how in both cases the tail helps to balance the animal. trying. But an animal with a squat body like an elephant firmly planted on its four big columns And then it hit me Butfirslies. of legs doesn't need a counter-weight in a tail.* Logo has a reporter butfirst that By this time the meaning of the word "blind" in the original story had changed for me. reports all but the first letter of a word In its complacent reading the story allows those of us who are blessed with sight to or all but the first word of a list, e.g., congratulate ourselves on seeing the connections between the ears, legs, and tails of the elephant. But to"see" real connections we also need a spirit of playful,exploratory inquiry Print butfirst "logo and skill in the unnamed art of making connections. And most of all, we need to have a gives ogo taste for making connections, to retain the joy in connecting that is innate in all of us — though so often attenuated in school by habits of dissociated learning. Print but first [I am The relationship between parts and wholes has been an important theme of Logo from teaching logo] the beginning. But the difference between the two views of the parts of the elephant brings out one respect in which Logo has made progress in this domain. A traditional Logo gives am teaching logo approach to "making an elephant" might begin with an analysis into parts in order to set up subprocedures to draw each of them. The elephant is the superprocedure that combines A new word game was born. the parts: A serious bird is a STERN TERN. TO ELEPHANT A mother kangaroo with octuplets HEAD has a POUCH OUCH. BODY The program might look like this: LEGS TAIL to butfirstie :wrd END op se :wrd butfirst : wrd TO HEAD end • - • SKULL TRUNK Try your brain on these (answers TUSKS are on page 14): EARS END 1. The remains from a bank fire. 2. A cafeteria object found in a ...and so on. teachers' lounge. But while it is a strength of Logo that the parts can be dealt with independently, the 3. Midwest farmer discussing the second version of the elephant story highlights a weakness that was the mirror image of crop. this positive quality; Logo was better at separating parts than at dealing with systems made 4. An unusual stove. of elements that interact dynamically with one another. A spreadsheet comes closer to 5. A new mine. being a "system": When you change one number in a spreadsheet many others change as 6. A thin missile. well. An animal is a system: When a part evolves, other parts may have to evolve as well. Got it? Send in any good ones you Even a videogame is a system when characters and objects respond to what the others do. can think up. Maybe we can have a • • (Cont. on pg. 14) Butfirstie corner.

* The word "squat" was added to fix a bug in my original argument pointed out by Michael Tempel. Think of a brontosaurus.

Logo Update I Spring 1993 page 14

(... Elephant? cont. from pg. 13) But anyone who has tried to program a Classroom Logo Projects videogame in Logo (or most any other These images are from project reports written by teachers and published by the Logo language!) will know how hard is to make Foundation. You may use the Response Form on the next page to request the list of this happen. publications. Recent developments in Logo take advantage of greater computer power to remedy this deficiency. For example, my colleague at MIT, Mitch Resnick, has made a Logo called *Logo which allows many thousands of turtles to interact in "soft simulations" of such phenomena as traffic jams and the social behavior of ants. The key feature of *Logo (which runs on a supercomputer called the Connection Machine) is that the procedures for the various creatures can run at the same time. It is an example of "parallel" computing or "multiprocessing." From Cityscapes by Laura Allen , . On a more accessible plane, the latest version of Logo from LCSl (soon to be released in a Macintosh version under the name "MicroWorlds") allows smaller numbers (tens rather than thousands) of turtles each to run its own independent program at the same time. Thus the operation of an entire "project" is more like the image of a population of people interacting with one another than like a From African Textiles by Orlando Mihich series of procedures coming out one at a time to do their thing. Where then is the elephant? In subsequent columns I shall develop the analogy between the biological and the Logo elephants along the lines of From Egyptian Hieroglyphics and LogoWriter by Thomas F. Trocco comparing the ideas that most powerfully allow us to see connections in the two cases. At least one of these powerful ideas About the Authors is shared: the idea of system as a unifying concept. But each kind of system has its Eadie Adamson is an educational Carol Sperry is on the editorial board of own specific intellectual connectors; The consultant who has taught Logo to children the Harvard Educational Review. She was relation of form to strength and to energy and adults for many years. the founding director of Project Mindstorm. plays a major role in determining how the Clotilde Fonseca is Executive Director of Michael Tempel is a former elementary parts of an animal interact. In the case of the Omar Dengo Foundation in Costa Rica. school teacher who has been working with Logo (and computation) the connecting Logo since 1979. He is President of the ideas are the ideas related to parts, wholes, Carolina Goodman teaches at Campbell Logo Foundation. A and connections themselves. Thus the Hall in North Hollywood, California. elephant itself is one of the many elephants behind the integrity of Logo. A Jane Hirsch teaches at Crossroads Elementary School and Marquez Butfirstie Answers: Elementary School in Santa Monica, 1. Cash ash. California. 2. Stray tray. Seymour Papert is Lego Professor of 3. Stalk talk. Learning Research at MIT. He is the 4. Strange range. founder of the Logo Foundation. 5. More ore. 6. Narrow arrow. Marian Rosen teaches Logo in the Ladue School District and at Fontbonne College Something to think about: rewrite in St. Louis, Missouri. butfirstie so that boat gives oat boat, which is a grain ship. A

Logo Update I Spring 1993 page 15

THE CHILDREN'S MACHINE The first 500 copies shipped will be by Seymour Papert personally autographed by Seymour Papert

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total $_ Name. Organization. Address City State. Zip. Day Phone. Evening Phone. page 16 Summer Logo Courses

If you are offering a Logo course or New York Pennsylvania workshop, please let us know so we may Lpng IslandUniysrsiiy Philadelphia Collcec of Textiles & include the information • Programming for the Science in Logo Update. Educator: Logo-July 5-9. '93 . introduction to Logo- Begins July '93 The next issue will be published in September 1993. • LEGO Logo-July 12-16, '93 Contact: Philadelphia College of Contact: Dr. James Dunne for Textiles & Science California information on course content. Graduate Admissions Fresno Pacific Colleae 516 299-2147 School House Lane & Henry Ave. •Using Logo in the Classroom- Contact: Mrs. Rayzel Sachs for Philadelphia. PA 19144 Summer '93 information on registration and fees. 215 951-2943 Contact: Lorin Neufeld 516 299-2199 • Fresno Pacific College Texas 1717 S. Chestnut Avenue SCOPE: Suffolk Countv Organization Th? Lamplighter School Fresno, CA 93702 for the Promotion of Education Summer 93 Courses 209 453-2000 • Lego Logo-Summer '93 ' Designing a Logo Curriculum Contact: Staff Development ^ov Your Class Maryland 516 360-0800 ext. 13. 21. or 25 * Planning Ahead for Computer Fun Johns Hookins University • Using the Computer for Home wood Campus Uhio Professional Needs • Logo I -June 12- Aug. 4, '93 ynivgr$ity pf TplgdQ Contact: Theresa Overall Contact: Diane Tobin • LogoWriter Course-June 14-25, '93 The Lamplighter School Technology Dept. Contact: George Shirk—SciMaTEC 11611 Inwood Road Johns Hopkins University University of Toledo Dallas, TX 75229-3098 3400 N. Charles Street 2801 W. Bancroft 214 369-9201 Baltimore, MD 21218 Toledo, OH 43606 410 516-8273 419 537-2079 Logo Foundation 250 West 57th Street • New York, NY 10107-2603 -k

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