Logo and Hypermedia
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Logo UpdateTh e Logo Foundation Newsletter A Volume 4, Number 2 - Winter 1996 In This Issue Logo and Hypermedia by Michael Tempel Logo and Hypermedia 1 Summer Institutes 7 At a workshop about a dozen years ago Robert Knight of the Lubbock, HyperLogo 8 Texas Public Schools showed his Logo multimedia creation. Written in Book Briefs 12 Terrapin Logo for the Apple II, it told a tale of a frog in a lily pond. The Public Domain Logo 13 triangular turtle not only drew the scenery but was also an actor in the story. Continua 14 The narration, complete with musical accompaniment, came from a cassette StarLogo 16 tape recorder sitting next to the Apple. Logosium 20 We've come a long way since then. With the advent of Micro Worlds, Logo Logo Users Groups 20 has evolved into a full-featured hypermedia authoring program. And coming from the multimedia side, HyperStudio has incorporated Logo as its resident The current fad in educational tech- programming language. {Look at the article by Mike Westerfield, which nology is multimedia. What does this begins on page 8.) have to do with Logo? In this issue of The use of Logo for creating multimedia projects received a boost back in Logo Update we answer the question 1986 with the introduction of LogoWriter. Several features of LogoWriter from two points of view. First, in "Logo combined to make it especially suitable for storytelling and reporting. Text andHypermedia"beginningon this page, could be written directly on the screen and edited as with any other word I describe the evolution of Logo into a processor. Carrying on a tradition developed in earlier versions of Logo, the hypermedia authoring environment. The four LogoWriter turtles could take on a variety of ready-made or user-created leading edge of this process is the newly shapes and move around the screen as birds, dancers, or space ships. Turtle released MicroWorids 2.0 from LCSI. shapes could also be "stamped" to add to a background drawn using turtle Second, in"HyperLogo: Logo Like You've graphics. Never Seen It!" Mike Westerfield de- But there's more to multimedia than mixing media. For thousands of years scribes how Logo works within people saved data and told stories in scrolls, friezes, and books, all of which HyperStudio, one of the most popular forced a linear organization. Electronic storage frees us to read and write in and widely used multimedia programs nonlinear ways. Point at a word or picture and you jump to another part of the available today. document. The path you follow through a document may be different today Mike and I express very different than it was yesterday, and someone else will follow yet another route. The points of view about Logo and multime- software can remember where you've been so you can backtrack, dia. Underlying our debate is a more This approach, familiar to anyone who has used HyperCard, a CDROM fundamental controversy about how pro- encyclopedia, or the World Wide Web, was originally known as "hypertext" gramming, sometimes referred to as when computer documents were only text. It evolved into "hypermedia" as "scripting", should be used within com- graphics, sound, and moving images were added. The term "multimedia" puter applications. But we agree in lacks the important reference to hyperlinking, but has become commonly general that software should be pro- used to refer to hypermedia environments. grammable, and specifically that Logo is Two features of LogoWriter make it a natural hypermedia environment, a good choice for multimedia environ- First, a Logo project is organized as a collection of pages. In this electronic ments. scrapbook the order of the pages doesn't matter. You can go from one to If you'd like to explore Logo and mul- another via any path you choose. Second, text on the LogoWriter screen is timedia more deeply, join us for one of "active." As in any word processor, you can select an area of text and then cut several Logo Summer Institutes that or copy it. But LogoWriter goes beyond this. The primitive selected reports will take place during June, July, and the selected text. If the word you select is the name of a LogoWriter page, then August in Maine, Minnesota, and New the command getpage selected takes you to that page. Thus, pages may be York City. These institutes also offer the linked directly to words in a body of text. With a little programming, you can opportunity to work with several other create a system in which putting the cursor on a word and pressing Control- Logo strands including turtle geometry. Something sends you off to another page. simulations, and game design. Look at Andy David wrote such a program almost as soon as LogoWriter hit the pages 4 and 7 for more information. street. Over the next several years Eadie Adamson and I developed similar Another summer activity coming up programs, which we used with her fourth and fifth graders at the Dalton is the third annual Logosium, which will School in New York City. Eventually our work was published in 1991 by LCSI be hosted by the renowned St. Paul Logo as LogoWriter Hypermedia Tools for use with the Apple II version of LogoWriter. project in St. Paul on June 14, the day But by then the world was moving on to the Macintosh / Windows style of after NECC. Look at the Call for Partici- interface, and LogoWriter was not. continues on the next page continues on the next page Logo and Hypermedia includes Logo as its resident pro• Logo Foundation gramming language. Roger Wagner, continued from page 1 250 West 57th Street who developed HyperStudio, sees it New York, NY 10107-2228 MicroWorids as an answer to the question: "What Telephone: 212 765-4918 A long period of stagnation in Logo will the word processor be in a world FAX: 212 765-4789 development ended abruptly in 1994 of multimedia?" HyperStudio was email: [email protected] with the introduction of MicroWorids. originally developed for the Apple The overall organization of a project Ilgs and then for the Macintosh. A Board of Directors as a collection of pages was carried Windows version has now been re• Seymour Papert, Chair Clocilde Fonseca over from LogoWriter. But a long list leased. Tessa R. Har\'ey of changes, large and small, added up Are MicroWorids and HyperStudio Geraldine Kozberg to a quantum leap forward for Logo. pretty much the same - hypermedia Michael Tempel Many of the improvements are espe• applications that include Logo? I Takayuki Tsuru cially helpful when one is using think not. Sharon Yoder has written MicroWorids for hypermedia cre• The Logo Foundation is a nonprofit Introduction toMicroWords -ALogo- ations. Backgrounds can be created educational organization incorporated based Hypermedia Environment. The in New York State. using drawing tools and imported key term is "Logo-based," which is an images. Text can be more flexibly accurate characterization of Logo Update is published three limes formatted and positioned on the MicroWorids, but not HyperStudio. yearly by the Logo Foundation. screen than was possible in Before I go any further with this Subscription is free. LogoWriter. You can have as many comparison, maybe some more infor• © 1996 Logo Foundation turtles as memory allows. They can mation about HyperStudio is in or• You may copy and distribute this grow and shrink and carry multicol• der. I think that Logo Update read• document for educational purposes ored shapes. Buttons can link pages ers are at least somewhat familiar provided that you do not charge for and run programs. with MicroWorids, if not from direct such copies and that this copyright notice is reproduced in full. Is MicroWorids a "hypermedia experience, at least by way of articles Logo"? As with most Logo environ• in past issues of this newsletter. This ments, people are using it for many is probably not the case with purposes. Becuase of its object orien• HyperStudio. Rather than tell you In This Issue tation and multitasking capability more myself, I asked Mike Westerfield continued from page 1 MicroWorids Logo is ideal for game- to write about HyperLogo and its pation on page 20. construction. It's also a good labora• place in the HyperStudio environ• Finally, you'll be pleased to know tory for building simulations in phys• ment. He should know best. He wrote that the Logo Foundation has a new ics, biology, and ecology. But one of HyperLogo. If you haven't read policy of offering discounts on pur• its greatest strengths is in support• "HyperLogo: Logo Like You've Never chases of all commercial versions of ing hypermedia projects, and a just Seen It!" I suggest that you take a Logo that we distribute. This includes released upgrade, MicroWorids 2.0, break from this article, turn to page all the products advertised in this further enhances the hypermedia ca• 8, and go read Mike's piece now. issue of Logo Update. So if you find pabilities of this Logo environment. Welcome back. HyperStudio with something that interests you, turn to Now you can play audio CDs and HyperLogo sounds good. So as Mike page 18, check out the discount price, video laserdiscs under program con• asks, "Where have all the Logo pro• and order from the Logo Foundation. trol. QuickTime^^' movies can be in• grammers gone?" Why haven't we all Even bigger discounts are available corporated into MicroWorids projects. jumped on the HyperLogo band• when you purchase software in con• You can choose from a number of wagon? Well, for one thing, junction with one of our workshops or fancy transitions between pages.