Re: LOGO-L> Language vs Visual

[Marian B Rosen <mbrosen@icon-stl.net>]

> > With morse, there are more than just two characters. There is a short tone
> > and a long one representing the did and the dah. There are also
> > corresponding short and long periods of silence which delineate letters and
> > words. Just try to teach a machine to read morse without taking these silent
> > periods into consideration!
> > Tom
> ...this problem makes a terrific project with legoLogo 
> Jeff

We did that once when I was working with older kids at the Junior High. 
The kids built a little flat tunnel with two lights at one end
connecting to computer A and two sensors at the other end connected to
Computer B.  You typed the message in at Computer A and the words
appeared on the screen of Computer B.  The first light flashed short and
long flashes of light to represent dot and dash.  The second light
flashed short and long flashes representing the short space between
words and the longer space at the end of sentences.  (LEGO-Logo later
made our machine into one of their idea cards.) 

We never thought about the linguistic importance of it all and in our
minds Computer B couldn't really "read"; it could just "decode".  But,
now you have me wondering whether we, as humans could have understood
the messages on Computer B's screen if it had no spacing.  Also I'm
wondering about messages of different levels of comlexity -- when would
a literate adult wimp out?  when would a first grader be lost?  is there
an age at which this becomes more or less possible?  etc.  I think I'll
take a couple of sentences  of unpunctuated, unspaced words and give it
to different age kids as a puzzler next year and see what happens.  At
the very least such an exercise MIGHT convince kids of the need for
punctuation and spacing.  Anybody got an idea of what a "fair" sentence
or two would be?

Marian Rosen
Instructional Technology Coordinator
Ladue Schools, St. Louis, MO 63121
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