🚀 go-pugleaf

Newsgroups: comp.lang.logo,misc.kids
Subject: Re: Getting a 10 year old started in programming
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References: <BsKGLv.JEC@unx.sas.com>
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Organization: Computer Using Educators of B.C., Canada
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Give her the basic graphics commands: forward, back, right, left and clean.

When she asks (in a week or two), tell her about repeat.

When she asks, tell her about to.  (You'll likely have to cover ed and
the basics of the Jove editor at that time.)

Answer questions: when you run out of answers show her the section of the
manual that lists the primitives.

Don't worry about directing.

This may sound flip, but it is a considered opinion based upon observation
and (in some ways sad) experience.  I was able to participate in an
experiment with Logo and grade three children at one time.  Each "teacher"
had at least one eight year old student, and could direct the study as
desired.  From reading "Mindstorms", it was obvious that Seymour considered
that Logo could cure cancer, and I didn't quite go that far.  I was, however,
willing to put it to the test.  Totally hands off, and let the child explore.
By the second week, one of the other "teachers" had obtained a set of Logo
worksheets.  By the third week, all the other "teachers" had cracked:
everyone was using the worksheets.  I was climbing the walls: my little
bimbo was doing nothing but filling the screen with masses of lines.  But
I was determined: stick to the concept, and if Logo (and Seymour) fell flat
on its face, so be it.  No skin off my nose.  (But my student was so
*stupid*!)

Sometime in the third week, in the space of two hours, my "stupid little 
airhead" surged ahead of the entire class.  By the fourth week, she was
correcting and improving the procedures of the rest of the class.  By the
end of eight weeks she had thoroughly mastered procedures and modular
programming, was dealing with recursion and list processing.  She had
even discovered, on her own, the "Total Turtle Trip Theorem", which I
had frankly considered to be impossible.  (I was very careful about *not*
giving her any info on it.  She didn't know anything about "degrees", but
she did discover that a closed figure required a total of 360 in "turns".
Blew me away, the day she did a perfect pentagon ... on her very first 
attempt.)

Let her explore.  Let her use Logo as long as she wants.  It's got everything
she'll need, conceptually.  The language she might use in eight years
may not be invented yet.  Don't sweat it.
 
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