7# .*XXXX b.8xX@ `* v"__________________________________________________________ Massachusetts Institute of Technology Educational Computing Group Logo Group Bibliography of Logo Memos Available for Distribution Massachusetts Institute of Technology Epistemology and Learning Group 20 Ames Street, E15-315 Cambridge, MA 02139 Logo Memos Logo Memo 1: A Computer Laboratory for Elementary Schools Seymour Papert October 1971 This is a research project on elementary education whose immediate objective is the development of new methods and materials for teaching in an environment of computers and computer-controlled devices. Longer term objectives are related to theories of cognitive processes and to conjectures about the possibility of producing much larger changes than are usually thought possible in the expected intellectual achievement of children. This proposal is formulated in terms of the self-sufficient immediate objectives. Logo Memo 2: Teaching Children Thinking Seymour Papert October 1971 The phrase "technology and education" usually means inventing new gadgets to teach the same old stuff in a thinly disguised version of the same old way. Moreover, if the gadgets are computers, the same old teaching becomes incredibly more expensive and biased towards its dullest parts, namely the kind of rote learning in which measurable results can be obtained by treating the children like pigeons in a Skinner box. The purpose of this essay is to present a grander vision of an educational system in which technology is used, not in the form of machines for processing children, but as something the child himself will learn to manipulate, to extend, to apply to projects, thereby gaining a greater and more articulate mastery of the world, a sense of the power of applied knowledge and a self-confidently realistic image of himself as an intellectual agent. Stated more simply, I believe with Dewey, Montessori, and Piaget that children learn by doing and by thinking about what they do. And so the fundamental ingredients of educational innovation must be better things to do and better ways to think about oneself doing these things. Logo Memo 3: Twenty Things to Do With a Computer Seymour Papert and Cynthia Solomon June 1971 Each section of this paper describes something one can do with a computer. As you read on you will be learning a computer language called Logo. In order to use a computer language you do not need to know how the computer works no more than you need to know how a human brain works in order to give a person instructions. In both cases you need only know how to describe what you want in an appropriate language. Logo Memo 4: Teaching Children to be Mathematicians Vs. Teaching About Mathematics Seymour Papert July 1971 Being a mathematician is no more definable as knowing a set of mathematical facts than being a poet is definable as knowing a set of linguistic facts. Some modern math. ed. reformers will give this statement a too easy assent with the comment: "Yes, they must understand, not merely know." But this misses the capital point that being a mathematician, again like being a poet or a composer or an engineer, means doing, rather than knowing or understanding. This essay is an attempt to explore some ways in which one might be able to put children in a better position to do mathematics rather than merely learn about it. Logo Memo 5: NIM: A Game Playing Program Seymour Papert and Cynthia Solomon February, 1972 This note illustrates some ideas about how to initiate beginning students into the art of planning and writing a program complex enough to be considered a project rather than an exercise on using the language or simple programming ideas. The project is to write a program to play a simple game (one-pile NIM of 21) as invincibly as possible. We developed the project for a class of seventh-grade children we taught in 1968-69 at the Muzzy High School in Lexington, MA. (This work was supported by NSF contract No. NSF-C-558 to Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Inc.) This was the longest programming project these children had encountered, and our intention was to give them a model of how to go about working under these conditions. To achieve this purpose we ourselves worked very hard to develop a clear organization of sub-goals which we explained to the class at the beginning of a three week period devoted to this particular program. One would not expect beginners to find as clear a sub-goal structure as this one; but once they have seen a good example, they are more likely to do so in the future for other problems. Thus our primary teaching purpose was to develop the idea of splitting a task into sub-goals. We wanted the children to have good models of various ways in which this can be done and to experience the heuristic power of this kind of planning (as opposed to jumping straight into writing programs.) Logo Memo 6: Developing a Musical Ear: A New Experiment Jeanne Bamberger July, 1972 This is a report on some ideas we have been developing at MIT for self-paced independent music study. The aim of our approach is to nurture in students that enigmatic quality called "musical" -- be it a musical ear or an individual's capacity to live a musical performance. While all of us cherish these qualities, rarely do we come to grips with them directly in teaching. More often we rely on our magical or mystical faith in the inspiration of music itself, and its great artist, to do the teaching. And for some (maybe ultimately all) this is the best course. But what about the others to whom we teach only the techniques of playing instruments or some facts about music -- its forms. its history and its apparent elements? How often do we have to take the time to examine the assumptions underlying these facts we teach, or to question the relations between what we teach and what we do as musicians? Logo Memo 7: Logo Manual, Harold Abelson, Nat Goodman, Lee Rudolph August 1973 NO LONGER AVAILABLE Logo Memo 8: Uses of Technology to Enhance Education Seymour Papert June 1973 This paper is the substance of a proposal to the N.S.F. for support of research on children's thinking and elementary education. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under grant GJ-1049 and conducted at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Logo Memo 9: TORTIS -- Toddler's Own Recursive Turtle Interpreter System Radia Perlman March 1974 TORTIS is a device for preschool children to communicate with and program the turtle. It consists of several boxes (currently 3 button boxes and 2 blox boxes) designed so that only a few new concepts are introduced at a time, but more can be added when the child becomes familiar with what he has. Hopefully transitions are gradual enough so that the child never thinks talking to the turtle is "too hard" or that he is "too dumb." And hopefully playing with the system should teach such concepts as numbers, breaking large problems into small solvable steps, writing and debugging procedures, recursion, variables, and conditionals. Most important of all, it should teach that learning is fun. Logo Memo 10: Summary of MYCROFT: A System for Understanding Simple Picture Programs Ira Goldstein May, 1974 Replaced by TR-294, available through the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab. Logo Memo 11: LLOGO: An Implementation of Logo in LISP Ira Goldstein, Henry Lieberman, Harry Bochner, Mark Miller June, 1974 NO LONGER AVAILABLE. Logo Memo 12: The Luxury of Necessity Jeanne Bamberger May 1974 This paper was originally written as an address to a conference of the National Association of Schools of Music on "The Music Consumer." Posing a series of questions which point to a fundamental issue underlying the Logo music project, the paper goes on to describe some of the specific projects with which students have been working in an effort to probe these issues. Emphasis is placed on "modes of representation" as a significant realm of inquiry: just how an individual represents a tune to himself, what are the differences between formal and informal modes of representation -- what features and relations of a melody does a representation capture, what does it leave out? What is the influence of such modes of "Perception," how do they effect strategies of problem solving, notions of "same" and "different" or even influence musical "taste"? Finally, there are some hints at what might constitute "sufficiently powerful representations" of musical design, with examples from both simple and complex pieces of music, as well as a probe into what might distinguish "simple" from "complex" musical designs. Logo Memo 13: What's In A Tune? Jeanne Bamberger July, 1974 What's In a Tune is a step-by-step account of two musically naive MIT students, engaged in a musical problem-solving situation. The paper focuses on such things as problem-solving strategies, modes of representations, problems of defining a problem, tacit models of a "sensible tune." At the same time, the paper looks at the assumptions inherent in the "categories" of description used traditionally by musicians in the light of the "categories" spontaneously generated by the students themselves. The problem situation (creating a tune that "makes sense" from a given set of "tune blocks") becomes one of more general interest because it provides the opportunity to examine closely how individuals deal with the issue of "design," where the features, the constraints, the goals must emerge as part of the problem-solving process itself. This is in contrast to problems where there is consensus as to what constitutes a good solution, where the elements of material are already defined and where there is general agreement on good heuristics for dealing with the problem. Observations of the two students can thus be seen as a concrete instance of learning and thinking within those prevalent real world situations where the structure of the task is itself a product of the learning and thinking process. As such, the paper is necessarily concerned with the interrelations between cognition, and perception. Logo Memo 14: A Glossary of Logo Primitives Jim Adams and Hal Abelson September, 1974. NO LONGER AVAILABLE, replaced by Logo Memo 16. Logo Memo 15: Velocity Space and the Geometry of Planetary Orbits Harold Abelson, Andrea diSessa, Lee Rudolph December, 1974 We develop a theory of orbits for the inverse-square central force law which differs considerably from the usual deductive approach. In particular, we make no explicit use of calculus. By beginning with qualitative aspects of solutions, we are led to a number of geometrically realizable physical invariants of the orbits. Consequently, most of our theorems rely only on geometrical relationships. Despite its simplicity, our planetary geometry is powerful enough to treat a wide range of perturbations with relative ease. Furthermore, without introducing any more machinery, we obtain full quantitative results. The paper concludes with suggestions for further research into the geometry of planetary orbits. Logo Memo 16: A Glossary of PDP II Logo Primitives E. Paul Goldenberg March, 1975 NO LONGER AVAILABLE (adapted from Memo 14 of Abelson and Adams) Logo Memo 17: NO LONGER AVAILABLE Logo Memo 18: The Art of Snaring Dragons Harvey Cohen November 1974 Revised, May 1975 DRAGONS are formidable problems in elementary mechanics not amenable to solution by naive formula cranking. What is the intellectual weaponry one needs to snare a Dragon? To snare a Dragon, one brings to mind an heuristic frame -- a specifically structured association of problem solving ideas. Data on the anatomy of heuristic frames -- just how and what ideas are linked together -- has been obtained from the protocols of many attacks on Dragons by students and physicists. In this paper various heuristic frames are delineated by detailing how they motivate attacks on particular Dragons, Milko and Jugglo, from the writers compilation. This model of the evolution of problem solving skills has also been applied to the interpretation of the intellectual growth of children, and in an Appendix we use it to give a cogent interpretation for the protocols of Piagetian "Conservation" experiments. The model provides a sorely needed theoretical framework to discuss teaching stratagems calculated to promote problem solving skills. Logo Memo 19: The Development of Musical Intelligence 1: Strategies for Representing Simple Rhythms Jeanne Bamberger November, 1975 This paper is the first in a series of monographs which will describe various aspects of the development of musical intelligence. This first paper describes two distinct and contrasting strategies which individuals use for making sense of simple rhythmic figures. The strategies are characterized by the particular features of the figures which each captures. The distinctions between the two strategies are significant to the general development of musical intelligence and may also suggest implications for learning and teaching in other domains as well. Logo Memo 20: Leading a Child to a Computer Culture Cynthia Solomon December, 1975 Logo Memo 21: Turtle Escapes the Plane: Some Advanced Turtle Geometry Andy diSessa December 1975 NO LONGER AVAILABLE (This memo is superseded by Chapter 5 of Turtle Geometry, by Abelson and diSessa.) Logo Memo 22: Logo Progress Report. 1973-1975 Ira Goldstein, Seymour Papert, Hal Abelson, Jeanne Bamberger March, 1976. NO LONGER AVAILABLE. Logo Memo 23: Teaching Teachers Logo. The Lesley Experiments Howard Austin April, 1976 This research is concerned with the question of whether or not teachers who lack specialized backgrounds can adapt to and become proficient in the technically complex, philosophically sophisticated Logo learning environment. Excellent results were obtained and are illustrated through a series of examples of student work. The report then gives some brief observations about the thought styles observed and concludes with suggestions for further work. Logo Memo 24: Using Computer Technology to Provide a Creative Learning Environment for Preschool Children. Radia Perlman. May, 1976 Tortis is a system of special terminals together with software which is designed to provide programming capabilities in small increments so that the child is never overwhelmed by too much to learn at one time, and maintains a feeling of control over the environment. Logo Memo 25: The TV Turtle. A Logo Graphics System for Raster Displays, Henry Lieberman June, 1976 Until recently, most computer graphics systems have been oriented toward the display of line drawings, continually refreshing the screen from a display list of vectors....Raster graphics systems instead associate some memory with each point on the screen and display points according to the contents of the memory. This paper discusses the advantages and limitations of such systems. Logo Memo 26: An Evaluative Study of Modern Technology in Education, (Proposal to the NSF), Seymour Papert June, 1976 This proposal to the NSF describes a new phase of research planned in Logo. Previous phases have concentrated on developing a conceptual superstructure (theories and teaching methods) and a material infra-structure (hardware and software) for a new style of using computers in education. Logo Memo 27: Some Poetic and Social Criteria for Education Design, Seymour Papert June, 1976 Also published as: A Ten Year Forecast for Computers and Communications Implications for Education. Logo Memo 28: A Case Study of a Young Child Doing Turtle Graphics in Logo, Cynthia Solomon and Seymour Papert July, 1976 (Formerly available as Working Paper #44, Published November 1975) This study was performed from January to April 1975, and explores some important issues with regard to using computers in education. It probes into the question of what programming ideas and projects will engage young children. In particular, a seven year old child's involvement in turtle graphics is presented as a case study. Logo Memo 29: Student Science Training Program in Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Final Report to the National Science Foundation. Hal Abelson and Andy diSessa September, 1976 During the summer of 1976, the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory sponsored a Student Training Program in Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science for high- ability secondary school students. This report describes, in some detail, the style of the program, the curriculum and the projects the students undertook. We hope that this document can serve not only as a report to the National Science Foundation but also as an elaboration of our ideas about what would constitute a model educational environment for high-ability secondary students. Logo Memo 30: Overview of a Linguistic Theory of Design and Its Applications, Mark Miller and Ira Goldstein December, 1976 The application of artificial intelligence (Al) techniques to the design of personal learning environments is an enterprise of both theoretical and practical value. In the short term, the process of developing and testing intelligent tutoring programs serves as a new experimental vehicle for exploring alternative cognitive and pedagogical theories. In the long term, such programs should supplement the educational supervision and guidance provided by human teachers. This paper illustrates our long term perspective by a scenario with a hypothetical tutoring system for elementary graphics programming. Logo Memo 31: NO LONGER AVAILABLE Logo Memo 32: Parsing Protocols Using Problem Solving Grammars, Mark Miller and Ira Goldstein December, 1976 A theory of the planning and debugging of programs is formalized as a context free grammar. The grammar is used to reveal the constituent structure of problem solving episodes, by parsing protocols in which programs are written, tested and debugged. This is illustrated by the detailed analysis of an actual session with a beginning student. The virtues and limitations of the context free formalism are considered. Logo Memo 33: SPADE: A Grammar Based Editor for Planning and Debugging Programs, Mark Miller and Ira Goldstein December, 1976 A grammar of plans is developed from a taxonomy of basic planning techniques. This grammar serves as the basis for the design of a new kind of interactive programming environment (SPADE), in which programs are generated by explicitly articulating planning decisions. The utility of this approach to program definition is that a record of these decisions, called the plan derivation, provides guidance for subsequent modification or debugging of the program. Logo Memo 34: Structured Planning and Debugging: A Linguistic Theory of Design, Ira Goldstein and Mark Miller December, 1976 A unified theory of planning and debugging is explored by designing a problem solving program called PATN. PATN uses an augmented transition network (ATN) to represent a broad range of planning techniques, including identification, decomposition, and reformulation. (The ATN is a simple yet powerful formalism which has been effectively utilized in computational linguistics.) Logo Memo 35: Design for PAZATN: A Linguistic Approach to Automatic Analysis of Elementary Programming Protocols, Mark Miller and Ira Goldstein December, 1976 A preliminary design is presented for PAZATN, an automatic protocol analyzer. PAZATN is based on a theory of problem solving in which planning knowledge is represented in augmented transition networks (ATNs). The design of PAZATN is significant in that it provides a domain independent framework for constructing specialized protocol analyzers. In order to apply PAZATN to a particular task domain, one must supply a set of event specialists (ESPs) which embody syntactically organized analytic knowledge specific to that domain. The approach has implications for psychological modeling and evaluation, and the design of computerized tutors. The initial task domain considered is elementary graphics, programming in the Logo language. Logo Memo 36: Wumpus Advisor 1: A First Implementation of a Program that Tutors Logical and Probabilistic Reasoning Skills, James Stanfield, Brian Carr, and Ira Goldstein October, 1976 The Wumpus Advisor program offers advice to a player involved in choosing the best move in a game for which competence in dealing with incomplete and uncertain knowledge is required. The design and implementation of the advisor explores a new paradigm in Computer Assisted Instruction, in which the performance of computer-based tutors is greatly improved through the application of Artificial Intelligence techniques. This report describes the design of the Advisor and outlines directions for further work. Our experience the tutor is informal and psychological experimentation remains to be done. Logo Memo 37: The Computer As Coach: An Athletic Paradigm for Intellectual Education, Ira Goldstein December, 1976 Over the next five years, computer games will find their way into a vast number of American homes, creating a unique educational opportunity: the development of "computer coaches" for the serious intellectual skills required by some of these games. From the player's perspective, the coach will be available to analyze alternative moves whenever the player wishes help. But, from the perspective of the coach, the request for help is an opportunity to illustrate by example basic mathematical scientific or other kinds of knowledge that the game exercises. The potential for establishing an "athletic" paradigm for certain knowledge and skills which have usually been considered the antithesis of ordinary sports is exciting, but there are critical research issues which must be addressed. Although the hardware needed for homes and coaches will continue to drop in cost, the software technology for designing competent coaches does not exist. The substance of this proposal is to develop the theory and design for such coaches, to implement prototypes and to experiment with their utility in conveying important intellectual skills. Logo Memo 38: Issues in a Computational Theory of Design, Mark Miller and Ira Goldstein, (AIM 390) NO LONGER AVAILABLE Logo Memo 39: Grammar as Programming Language, Neil Rowe October, 1976 This paper discusses some student projects involving generative grammars. While grammars are usually associated with linguistics their usefulness goes far beyond just "language" to many different domains. Their application is general enough to make grammars a sort of programming language in their own right. A simple grammar-running control structure is presented, uncomplicated and very suitable for student tinkering. So not only can students write grammars, but they can modify and improve the grammar interpreter itself, learning something about how a simple kind of computer parser works. Logo Memo 40: Pre-Readers' Concept of the English Word (AIM 395) Bob Lawler November, 1976 Pre-Readers exhibit concepts of the English word different from those of literate adults. The inclusive word concept is primary; a work is what we call an utterance and any of its parts. Pre-Readers suffer confusion between homophones at the syllabic level, e.g., the sound of the suffix in "puppy" is confused with the name of the letter "P." Conflict between implicit judgments of word-hood (inferred from the child's counting of the number of words in an utterance) and explicit judgments (responses to questions about whether an item is a word) vary from high, for pre-readers, to low, for beginning readers. The justifications pre-readers offer to support their judgments of word-hood are notable for not including any arguments based immediate verbal context. A concept development theory is of interpret this data and their relation to learning to read. Logo Memo 41: Teaching the Computer to Add: An Example of Problem-Solving in Anthropomorphic Computer Culture, Cynthia J. Solomon, (AIM 396) December, 1976 Computers open up new ways to think about knowledge and learning. Learning computer science should draw upon and feed these new approaches. In a previous paper called "Leading a Child to a Computer Culture" I discuss some ways to do so in a very elementary context. This paper is a contribution to extending such thinking to a more advanced paper. Logo Memo 42: Capturing Intuitive Knowledge in Procedural Description, Jeanne Bamberger, (AIM 398) December, 1976 Trying to capture intuitive knowledge is a little like trying to capture the moment between what just happened and what is about to happen. Or to quote a famous philosopher, "You can't put your foot in the same river once."* The problem is that you can only "capture" what stands still. Intuitive knowledge is not a static structure, but rather a continuing process of constructing coherence and meaning out of the sensory phenomena that come at you. To capture intuitive knowledge then means: Given some phenomena, what are your spontaneous ways of selecting significant features or for choosing what constitutes an element, how do you determine what is the same and what is different, how do you aggregate or chunk the sensory data before you ? *Cratylus (5th Century B.C.) Paraphrased by Donald Schn, 1965. Logo Memo 43: Development of Musical Intelligence II: Children's Representation of Pitch Relations, (AIM 401) Jeanne Bamberger December, 1976, The work reported here is an outgrowth of studies in the development of musical intelligence and learning that have been underway for about four years. Beginning as one of the activities in the Logo Lab (a part of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory) the research has expanded to include more theoretical work in the MIT Division for Study and Research in Education. Logo Memo 44: NO LONGER AVAILABLE Logo Memo 45: Wusor II: A Computer Aided Instruction Program with Student Modeling Capabilities, Ira Goldstein and Briar Cart NO LONGER AVAILABLE Logo Memo 46: Teacher's Guide for Computational Models of Animal Behavior, (AIM 432) Hal Abelson and Paul Goldenberg, April 1977, This is an experimental curriculum unit which suggests how the computational perspective can be integrated into a subject such as elementary school biology. In order to illustrate the interplay of computer and non-computer activities, we have prepared the unit as a companion to the Elementary School Science Study "Teacher's Guide to Behavior in Mealworms." This material is based on use of the Logo computer language. Logo Memo 47: On "Learnable" Representations of Knowledge: A Meaning for the Computational Metaphor, (AIM 441 ) Andrea diSessa September, 1977 The computational metaphor which proposes the comparison of processes of mind to realizable or imaginable computer activities, suggests a number of educational concerns. This paper discusses some of those concerns including procedural modes of knowledge representation and control knowledge -- knowing what to do. (Also published as: "On Learnable Representations of Knowledge: A Meaning for the Computational Metaphor," Cognitive Process Instruction, J. Lochhead, J. Clement, editors; Franklin Institute Press (1978), pp. 239-266.) Logo Memo 48: Assessment and Documentation of a Children's Computer Laboratory, (AIM 460) Logo Group September, 1977 An NSF sponsored 12-Month project. This research will thoroughly document the experiences of a small number of 5th grade children in an elementary school computer laboratory, using LOGO, an advanced computer language designed for children. Detailed anecdotal records will be kept. Logo Memo 49: Interim Report of the Logo Project in the Brookline Public Schools: An Assessment and Documentation of a Children's Computer Laboratory, Sylvia Weir, Dan Watt, Seymour Papert, Jeanne Bamberger, Hal Abelson, Andy diSessa, George Hein and Stephanie Dunning June, 1978 NO LONGER AVAILABLE The Logo activities of a group of 16 sixth-grade students, representing a full spectrum of ability, are being documented with a view of developing ways of capturing the learning possibilities of such an environment. The first group of eight subjects have completed 25 closely observed hours, extending over 7 weeks, in a Logo classroom situated in a Brookline school. This is an interim report on these observations designed to exhibit the content of what has been learned; and insights into both the variety of cognitive styles of the pupils and the variety of learning situations available to a teacher with which to respond to different pupil styles and analysis, and we are interested in looking at this material from several points of view. The current state of our various analyses is presented here, without any effort to prune the considerable redundancy which has been generated in the process of doing the multiple cut exercise. Logo Memo 50: Understanding Understanding Mathematics, Edwina R. Michener August, 1978 In this paper we look at some of the ingredients and processes involved in the understanding of mathematics. We analyze elements of mathematical knowledge, organize them in a coherent way and take note of certain classes of items that share noteworthy roles in understanding. We thus build a conceptual framework in which to talk about mathematical knowledge. We then use this representation to describe the acquisition of understanding. We also report on classroom experience with these ideas. Logo Memo 51: Information Prosthetics for the Handicapped, Seymour Papert and Sylvia Weir September, 1978 In this proposal to the BEH we describe a technological step towards the realization of INFORMATION PROSTHETICS. Our primary focus is on using rather than making the technology. Specifically, our goal is to transpose for the use of cerebral-palsied children a computer-based learning environment we have developed, and to study in this environment a series of issues in developmental psychology, in the psychology of learning, in psycho diagnostic techniques and in methods of instruction. Logo Memo 52: Logo Music Projects: Experiments in Musical Perception and Design, Jeanne Bamberger May, 1979 This memo gives a series of experiments which one can use to get a better understanding of how music works and how music is apprehended by an active and knowing listener. It does so by using the children's computer language, Logo and capitalizes on the use of procedural thinking and other programming concepts in the design and analysis of melody and rhythm. Logo Memo 53: Final Report of the Brookline Logo Project. Part II. Project Summary and Data Analysis Seymour Papert, Daniel Watt, Andrea diSessa, and Sylvia Weir September, 1979 During the school year 1977-78 four computers equipped with Logo and Turtle Graphics were installed in an elementary school in Brookline, MA. All sixth grade students in the school had between 20 and 40 hours of hands-on experience with the computers. The work of sixteen students was documented in detail. The volume includes: (1) an overview of the Brookline Logo project; (2) a description of the learning styles of different students who took part in the project; (3) the experience of students at both extremes of the range of abilities present in a typical public school; (4) a breakdown of the computer programming skills and concepts learned by the students during the course of the project; (5) a breakdown of the mathematical and geometrical skills and concepts learned by the students during the course of the project; and (6) a description of the results of a brief exposure of students to a dynamic turtle which simulates Newtonian motion. (See Logo Memo 54, Part III of this report.) Logo Memo 54: Final Report of the Brookline Logo Project. Part III: Profiles of Individual Student's Work, Daniel Watt September, 1979 During the school year 1977/78 four computers equipped with Logo Turtle Graphics were installed in an elementary school in Brookline, MA. All sixth grade students in the school had between 20 and 40 hours of hands-on experience with the computers. The work of sixteen students was documented in detail. The profiles, written by the classroom teacher, are discursive essays on the experiences of each of the sixteen experimental subjects. This illustrates the wide variety of learning styles and learning paths within the Logo learning environment. They are particularly useful for teachers who anticipate using Logo with children, and offer a rich source of project ideas suitable for naive programmers. (See Logo Memo 53, Park II of this Logo Memo 55: The Evaluation and Cultivation of Spatial and Linguistic Abilities in Individuals with Cerebral Palsy, Sylvia Weir March, 1980 Ongoing work using computers in the education of the physically handicapped is summarized in this report and the next phase of activity is outlined. We address three issues of research with severely cerebral palsied children; namely (1) the investigation of computer-based techniques to maximize their acquisition of spatial and linguistic skills; (2) the development of computer-based diagnostic tools to facilitate the functional specification of subcategories of this group; and (3) investigating how these results can inform our theories of the cognitive development of normal individuals. Logo Memo 56: One Child's Learning: Introducing Writing with a Computer, Robert W. Lawler March, 1980 This is a case study of how one child learned to write in a computer-rich setting. Although computer access did affect her learning significantly, the details presented here go beyond supporting that claim. They provide a simple example of what a computer-based introduction to writing might be like for other children. We conclude with a short discussion of issues raised by the study. (Also published as "One Child's Learning," Robert Lawler, SIGQUE, July, 1980) Logo Memo 57: The Progressive Construction of Mind (One Child's Learning: Addition), Robert W. Lawler June, 1980 An intensive, naturalistic study tracked one six-year-old's learning for six months and more. The study was inspired by the hope that with concepts of Artificial Intelligence and sufficiently detailed observation we could describe the path of knowledge development through observing significant learning experiences. The corpus includes a reasonably complete record of the child's public calculations, both formal and informal, during the period of the study. We present an interpretation of addition-related matter from the corpus. The interpretive focus is on the learning processes through which a broadly applicable skill emerges from the integration of knowledge based on specific, particular experiences. (Also published as "The Progressive Construction of Mind," Robert Lawler, Cognitive Science, January 1981, Vol. V, p. 1-30. Logo Memo 58: Extending a Powerful Idea, Robert W. Lawler July, 1980 Mathematics is much more than the manipulation of numbers. At its best it involves simple, clear examples of thought so apt to the world we live in that those examples provide guidance for our thinking about problems we meet subsequently.. We call such examples, capable of heuristic use, POWERFUL IDEAS, after Papert (1980). This article documents a child's introduction to a specific powerful idea in a computer environment. We trace his extensions of that idea to other problem areas, the first similar to his initial experience and the second more remote from it. Logo Memo 59: The Articulation of Complementary Roles, Robert W. Lawler May, 1981 We analyze in detail one child's learning to play Tic Tac Toe by focusing on the developing organization of disparate cognitive structures. This interpretation extends an earlier analysis of the same child's learning (Lawler, 1981) in two directions. We propose and apply a vision of how social engagement leads to the personal construction of mind. Further, we trace how knowledge based on one's own actions can develop into structures capable of predicting stage-like changes in modes of thought. The six-year-old subject initially knew so little of Tic Tac Toe that she couldn't continue playing when confronted by an unanticipated response to her opening move in a game. Six months later she was playing both sides of the game, making smart moves for both players. Two years later, she invented a new strategy and was able to prove predictions of victories by detailing the offensive use of forced moves in games worked out in her mind. The corpus of observations assembled during this period is rich in detail and reasonably complete in covering the child's overt behavior. Logo Memo 60: Some Powerful Ideas, Robert W. Lawler December, 1981 Here is a set of problem solving ideas (absorbed by and developed through the MIT Logo project over many years) presented in such a way as to be useful to someone with a Logo computer. With the ideas on unbound, single sheets, you can easily pick out those you like and set aside the others. The ideas vary in sophistication and accessibility: no threshold, no ceiling. Logo Memo 61: Natural Learning, Laurence Miller October, 1981 This memo reports the results of a case study into how children learn in the absence of explicit teaching. The three subjects, an eight-year-old, a ten-year-old and a thirteen-year-old, were observed in both of two experimental micro-worlds. The first of these micro worlds, called the Chemicals World, included a large table, a collection of laboratory and household chemicals, and apparatus for conducting experiments with chemicals; the second, called the Mork and Mindy World, included a collection of video-taped episodes of the television series "Mork and Mindy"; a video-taped machine and an experimenter with whom the subjects could discuss the episodes. The main result of the study is a theory of how children's interests interact with knowledge embodied in their environment causing them to learn new powerful ideas. An early version of this theory is presented in chapter five. Logo Memo Bibliography - Addendum I Logo Memo #100 "Microworlds: Transforming Education," Seymour Papert 1984 Logo Memo #101 "New Theories for New Learnings," Seymour Papert 1984 Logo Memo #102 "Exploring 3-Dimensional Space with Logo," Horatio Reggini 1986 Logo Memo #103 "3-D Logo Commands and Procedures," Horatio Reggini 1986 Logo Memo #104 "Projects with 3-D Logo, Horatio Reggini 1986 Logo Memo Bibliography - Addendum II Papers by the L&E Group "Software Design for Learning Mathematics," Idit Harel 1988 "Multi-Logo: A Study of Children and Concurrent Programming," Mitchel Resnick 1988 "Children, Cybernetics, and Programmable Turtles," Fred Martin 1988 "Children as Software Designers," Idit Harel 1986 "Pathways Into a Child's Mind: Helping Children Become Epistemologists," Edith Ackermann "Circular Reactions and Sensori-Motor Intelligence: When Piaget's Theory Meets Cognitive Models," Edith Ackermann 1990 "LEGO, Logo, and Life," Mitchel Resnick "Rain, Rain, Go Away," Seymour Papert 1988 "Constructionism: A New Opportunity for Elementary Science Education," (NSF Proposal), 1986 "Computer as Material: Messing About with Time," Seymour Papert 1988 "Perceptrons, (Intro.)" Seymour Papert and Marvin Minsky 1969 "Beyond the Cognitive: The Other Face of Mathematics," Seymour Papert 1986 "Different Visions of Logo," Seymour Papert "Are Computers Bad for Children?," Seymour Papert uP _p @P _ @ ;a}5ITUVWXYZ[\]^_l x y v w QR_{789Gs$$$ $$$$Ws*8amn)7BC R`jk+67LM[s"""# ##'#(((((()))1)2)A)v))),x,y,,,,,------3-4-B-]-j-x--1 $$$ $$ $$W111112 224J4K4Z444444444555l5m5|5555556 6<6J6V6W888+88889999:::;;;;;<< < =,=-=<=s=====>>@>c>o>>??@ @@@@BBC0CNC]C^EE$$$$$$$WEEEEEEF#FAFPFQGGHHEHcHrHsJ=J>J?JNJJJJL8L9LHLLLLOOOOP:PiPwPxRRRRS*S8SGSHWWWWXXX1X2X@XaXkXyXzZZZZ[[[+[,^^^^__(_)```````ccd' $$$ $$$$$Ud'd6d_ddddf0f1f?f@fTfUfcfnffffffgBgcgogpiii$iiiijjkzkkkl%l5l6mOmPm_mmn1nanlnmnnr-r.r=rgrzrrtwtxtttttvvvvw$w5w?w@xxxxyyNy^y_}E}F}U}}} $$ $$$$$W}}}+7CD):EF  CT^_MN\n~ /0@hw|}&K\abq $ $$$$ $$W#$2dtz{>OP  !4j{ "CRXYv$C  ^ v-j%,4; CKHT]emlv@Cy6E    -Ns1Ed'}OPQRSTU !"9:~HH(FG(HH(d'@"=/RBH -:LaserJet 4M Palatino^^^(3( " MIT Media Lab MIT Media Lab