From: Fran.O'gorman@f94.n272.z1.fidonet.org (Fran O'gorman)
Newsgroups: k12.ed.comp.literacy
Subject: Re: Logo
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 92 10:41:21 PST
Organization: FidoNet node 1:272/94 - Monroe Electronic M, Monroe NY


 BK> Please be careful if your considering using LOGO with your 
 BK> students.  According to Pappert and others, learning LOGO helps 
 BK> the student develop problem solving strategies that can later be 
 BK> generalized to other areas.  The problem is, this transfer doesn't 
 BK> take place.  Learning LOGO is good only for doing LOGO projects.  
 BK> This falls in with current ideas about situated learning (although 
 BK> in truth, all learning is situated).  Want to say I've read some 
 BK> recent research questioning the use of LOGO, but caqn't pull up 
 BK> the articles right now. I really question the purpose or need for 
 BK> teaching programming at the elementary level.

I found your statements interesting-- and have to admit that the
initial excitement over logo went a little overboard-- we were
given the feeling that the kids would re-invent math and become
little Einsteins and Edisons and learning and education as we know
it would be transformed...

Well the real world told us otherwise... but I am still pro-logo
in the elementary (until something equally as good or better
arrives) and I'll tell you why:

I would get small groups of 6 to 12 students as young as
kindergarten age and this was back in '82... we were experimenting
and learning ourselves...the only other kinds of computer
expereinces available at that time mainly were games or drill and
practice programs... (not even much word processing available as
we were using TI 99/4a's) but this was the first time a computer
setting had been provided where students could create something
new...

The results of those years are hard to measure but since this is a
small town I often see 'my kids' all grown up and I remember just
recently seeing Roseanne at my church and since I knew her Mom
said hi to them both after mass...I said to Roseanne after saying
hi to her Mom, you probably don't remember me (and she didn't
--after all she was only a primary grader when I had her and I
only had her group occasionally) But when I refreshed her memory
she still didn't remember me but remembered with pleasure a flower
she had made after experimenting with an elaborate repeat and
different numbers...

This was a girl who was not the most academically successful at
that time (don't know how that later turned out) but her
experience with the turtle was a definite turn-on -- and something
she could recall with pride many years later...

Her brother who happened to be very bright loves computers and
wants to make a career in that field...

These are different examples... but I think there are some
intangibles here that are part of the experience that certainly no
drill and practice program can give... and while there are other
experiences available now (like desktop publishing, etc...) the
very young child can master the turtle and really have a ball at
the same time...

There are graphics programs too... but the fact that the child has
to plan the numbers helps the number world fit into a very real
world (at least to the child) and takes the child a step further..

Because computers are still sort of new to education we think of
it as a subject instead of a tool... with logo I thought of it as
a class in creating and thinking and logo and computer as the pen
and tablet-- the vehicle for me to create the environment and the
challenges..  Thought of in that regard I think logo works and is
good... but if you expect a child to re-invent math (as once
thought) logo falls short...

Also if the curriculum of basic reading and writing has to take a
back seat to such as this, that would be wrong also... but in its
proper perspective logo can be a great experience... I know for us
it was...

(A brief PS:  My logo exerience back then is what hooked ME to
these crazy machines! <g>)

--Fran



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