Re: 'The Role of Computer Programming in Education

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Ken Kahn (kenkahn@toontalk.com)
Mon, 27 Sep 1999 09:57:12 -0700 

From: "Ken Kahn" <kenkahn@toontalk.com>
Subject: Re: 'The Role of Computer Programming in Education
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 09:57:12 -0700

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> Below are some nice responses from Dr. Amnon Till in Isarel.
> >The 1960s saw the birth of Logo and Basic,
>
> Logo was "born" on 80 or 81 at MIT labs by Prof. Papert who was among
other
> things a Psychologists & mathmatician & studied Psychology at Geneve Swiss
> with Peaget. A friend of mine studied with him during 1968.
>

I'm glad to see that despite the "official" end of the discussion on this
topic that there is still some activity. I hestitate to quibble about dates
but LOGO was born at BBN in the late 1960s. From Seymour Papert's Mindstorms
(pages 210-211) published in 1980:

"In 1967, before the children's laboratory at MIT had been officially
formed, I began thinking about designing a computer language that would be
suitable for children. This did not mean that it should be a 'toy' language.
On the contrary, I wanted it to have the power of professional programming
languages, but I also wanted it to have easy entry routes for
nonmathematical beginners. Wallace Feurzeig, head of the Educational
Technology Groupt at the research firm of Bolt Beranek and Newman, quickly
recognized the merit of the idea and found funding for the first
implementation and trial of the language. The name LOGO was chosen for the
new language to suggest the fact it is primarily symbolic and only
secondarily quantitative. My original design of the language was greatly
improved in the course of discussions with Daniel Bobrow, Cynthia Solomon,
and Richard Grant. Most subsequent development of the LOGO language, which
has gone through several rounds of 'modernization', took place at MIT."

One reason I have for arguing about dates is that it makes the development
of LOGO a much more impressive and radical event when one thinks of the
state of computers and software in 1967. On the other hand it means that
LOGO is based upon state-of-the-art ideas about programming 32 years ago.
And that LOGO has had 32 years to succeed in the world and has only had
partial success.

> >4. All of the new languages are visual programming languages where text
> >plays only a minor role. Will this make a significant difference?
>
> No. I used to teach the Graphic arts of Logo & Basic.
>

I am sorry I wasn't clearer in my question. I don't mean using a textual
programming to compute with graphics and pictures. I don't even mean visual
programming in the sense of Visual Basic and Microworlds where the user
interface can be constructed graphically. I mean that the source code of the
programs is visual or animated and is not a string of text.

Best,

-ken kahn

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