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LOGO Lessons
(Released to the web December 3, 2006) Parents in Readington and those who are a part of other school districts across our nation are increasingly turning to private tutoring, supplemental lessons at home or even to home schooling in order to correct what they see as a dearth of good teaching in areas of science, social studies and mathematics. With the tight focus educators today have on fulfilling the narrow goals of the testing culture, content that is not on state tests is pushed to the side. Plus, national programs like Everyday Mathematics are being blamed for a lack of depth even in areas that are tested. Virtually every textbook series used today has at least one dedicated section on standardized test taking, and most have chapter or unit level test taking strategies built in. As the old commercial put it: "Where's the beef?" For those parents who wish to supplement at home and who are not willing or able to afford private tutoring, there are options. One of these options is a computer programming language called LOGO. First developed in the late sixties, the LOGO language became popular as a teaching tool in the 1980's. In fact, it was widely taught in college level courses to teachers in training. While the tool is often associated with constructivist learning philosophy, it has grown far beyond that theory. The basic idea behind LOGO is to provide a tool for children to explore concepts in mathematics, geometry, and language while also learning how to use computers in ways that are productive. The tool is simple enough to allow children as young as second grade to be comfortable but extensive enough to prevent limitations or boredom for much older students.
The most common form of the programming language involves a "turtle" which is commanded to move in different directions by text commands in the LOGO language. The previous implementation of the turtle as an actual mechanical device has now been replaced by a graphical "turtle" on a computer screen. That has also allowed the introduction of color, shape, and of tools for debugging programs. Typing "forward 100" will command the turtle to move forward 100 steps. Typing "right 45" will cause the turtle to turn 45 degrees to the right. Children quickly learn to make a square with these two commands. Other commands change pen color or provide color fills. New commands can be taught to the computer too. A student can tell the turtle how to make a square in the future by typing:
Now the turtle knows how to create a square when the student types "square" and the student has learned a little something about geometry and language. These simple examples can quickly become old hat, but the beauty of LOGO is that it has enough depth so that more advanced students can create complex graphic environments, their own graphical games, or even solve difficult problems in algebra or calculus. As computers became more powerful and interfaces became more flashy, the use of LOGO in school environments became more limited. However, development of the environment has continued to this day and many educators and parents are rediscovering LOGO as a means to teach concepts missing from modern curriculum. As an important benefit, young students enjoy LOGO programming enough to keep interest high. LOGO is available in numerous forms on the internet for free and licensed download. Tutorials, reference material and programming examples are also widely available. Some of the links below will help interested readers get started. Parents will find that students in the fourth grade and up will take to LOGO easily, typically needing an adult only to install the program and to give a quick push in the right direction. Students in younger grades can also benefit but will require a little more hand-holding. Follow these links to get started: To download the LOGO program for Windows computers, try this tested link: http://sourceforge.net/projects/fmslogo Another version can be found here: http://www.ithaca.edu/seelogo/down_load_seelogo.htm
For a zip file containing an introductory video tutorial kit, try this link: http://www.softronix.com/logo.html For examples of much more advanced programming see: http://www.ithaca.edu/dani/SeeLogo/classes.html and also these: http://www.seansastronomyshop.com/~dan/Asteroid_Miner/Asteroid_Miner.html http://www.the-hunters.org/logo/tictactoe/ For more background and history on LOGO try these links: http://el.media.mit.edu/Logo-foundation/logo/index.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_programming_language
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