

Ask HN: Any experience teaching LOGO to children? - carlos

I would like to start teaching LOGO to my 7 year old daughter. My only and last experience with LOGO was 25 years ago reading the "Apple LOGO" book from Harold Abelson.<p>Do you know any good LOGO interpreter for Windows?<p>Have you tried to teach programming to kids?.<p>Thanks.
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retroafroman
I don't know of a good LOGO interpreter for Windows, but I have had some
experience teaching programming to kids. I interned with OLPC a few years ago,
and they have a visual progamming application called Turtle Blocks which is
very similar to LOGO. Unfortunately, it's only available in Sugar (the Fedora
Linux based OS that they use on the XO-available as a live USB). Also, MIT's
Scratch is another program that is available for Windows and Mac that is
designed for visual programming for kids, but has many more features than LOGO
or TurtleBlocks.

When I was working with OLPC, my boss Elana would make teachers and students
try to understand the idea of giving and following exact directions before
letting them jump onto the computer. Outside, they would have someone act as
the "turtle" and they would receive directions like "walk forward 5 steps",
"turn right 90 degrees", "take one step back", etc. This way, they were tasked
with walking in a square and ending up in the same place they started. Before
they could start though, they had to write out all the instructions they would
give to walk the square, then a person would interpret them. Just like how a
programmer writes a program and only after it's finished a computer interprets
it.

I'd make starting off a game like this, just following directions. Have her
give you the directions to walk from one room to another while avoiding
obstacles. Having gone through this thought process, it makes understanding
making the little cursor on the screen do something a much less abstract
experience.

After getting the cursor moving around the screen and drawing boxes, I think
that one of the best ways to get a kid excited about programming is just by
showing cool examples of things drawn in LOGO. Then pick a simple, short
script and step through it with them. From there, start changing parameters
one at a time and point out that the output is different. Of course, at this
point, a challenge is necessary and possible. Have them try to draw something
that they like, or a stick figure of themselves. If she can do that, then try
making a taller stick figure for you, or something like that.

