Ken Kahn (KenKahn@toontalk.com)
Fri, 20 Nov 1998 09:43:26 -0800
From: "Ken Kahn" <KenKahn@toontalk.com> Subject: [ifets] A new member - Ken Kahn Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1998 09:43:26 -0800
I would like to introduce myself to this group.
I first became interested in computers and learning in the mid 1970s when I
was a graduate student at MIT. I joined Seymour Papert's Logo project. After
acquiring my doctorate I focused on AI, distributed computing, and
programming language research. In 1992 I left Xerox PARC to pursue a dream
of truly making programming child's play. I had a few ideas about how to go
about this. Rather than build programs by typing text or by assembling a
diagram, I imagined that kids could build programs inside of an animated
interactive world. And that the programs they built could be based upon the
latest (and in my opinion best) computer science research on programming
languages. After 6 years of work, the result is ToonTalk. (See
www.toontalk.com)
In ToonTalk a child is a character in a game world. She can fly her
helicopter into houses, train robots, give birds messages to deliver, fill
boxes with all sorts of things, use animated tools like Dusty the Vacuum and
Pumpy the Bike Pump, and more. While doing these things, she is really
building, running, and debugging computer programs. And the programs are
concurrent and object-oriented.
I've been following the discussion here about tutoring systems. ToonTalk
includes a Martian named Marty who acts like a guide or coach. He maintains
a user model to suggest new things for the user to try. He is able to
describe and explain what is happening in the world. And Marty uses a
text-to-speech engine and so is able to help young children before they
learn to read. Having been an AI researcher for many years I know how much
more sophisticated Marty could be in user modeling and generating advice.
But the surprising thing is how well he works given the simple
implementation.
A discussion I would like to see in this group is the role of computer
programming in education. I think software isn't just something for learners
to use, but also to create. I like the analogy that using software is like
reading, and creating software is like writing. Children aren't expected to
write great novels or magazine articles but they are expected to learn to
write. Why don't we give them the tools to create software? And what has
gone wrong (and right) with attempts in the past to give computer
programming a bigger role in K though 12.
Best,
-ken kahn
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