🚀 go-pugleaf

chuck@ksr.com (Chuck Shavit) writes:

>Why would you want to teach Logo to very young children?  As I understand
>it, Logo is a tool for developing math and programming skills.  But at the
>level described above, it seems to me that there is very little educational
>(math and programming) value to a session in which the very young kid ...

I'm not sure what passes for "very young." My daughter is going on 8
and I'm trying to find a way to get her started in programming as a
skill. I posted a query a month or so ago asking about materials
suitable for her age level and came up with nothing. Actually, the
best thing I've seen is that LOGO shorthand function that prompted
your questions.

I see that function as providing a bridge for her to understand LOGO
primitives. Once she's learned what forward, left, right, and so on
do, then I can talk about composing and saving a sequence of them.
Then about iteration. Then maybe variables.

I think the essential abstraction of programming is the notion of
producing a sequence independent of its execution. Does anyone
remember Big Trak? It was a toy tank-like vehicle from about a dozen
years ago.  It had a keypad and accepted 4 LOGO-like direction
commands.  You'd type in a sequence of commands, hit the GO button,
and it would follow the command sequence you typed.  That teaches the
essence of programming as far as I'm concerned. I almost bought one
since I knew I'd want one someday to teach my kids what programming is.

>Maybe a more general question is what is the optimal age (or skill level,
>if you like), if any, to introduce Logo to kids?

It depends on the kid. If the kid sounds curious about programming and
has basic reading skills, why not? Some kids probably won't be
interested.  It just won't fit their preferences.

>One last question: did any of the netters have any bad experience in
>exposing a kid to Logo before he or she was ready for it?

The kiss-of-death would probably be to treat introductory programming
like piano practice.

Rick.
smith@sctc.com        arden hills, minnesota