Re: LOGO-L> specific ideas for classrm use

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

Well, now, this single-key stroke/ button discussion has taken off! 
Maybe it's the junior version of the old question of what is the
difference between Logo and Logo-like... 

It's interesting to me that many of us use/used single-stroke even
though we were aware of the arguments against it.  Those arguments, as I
remember them, centered on two ideas: (1)  you were keeping the kids
from developing ideas of number magnitude and (2) by controlling the
size of the turns, you were denying certain shapes to the kids; e.g., if
you go with 12 degrees, you can't get the square or octagon and if you
use 15 degrees, oops there goes the pentagon!  I myself found these
arguments haunting in a purist kind of way, but about 15 pre-Kg and Kg
teachers, who were less interested in theory and more interested in
having Logo happen in their rooms, convinced me to write and implement
some single stroke programs.   I based mine on the wonderful Lamplighter
files that came with TI-Logo.  They've been in use (rewritten for
various dialects) from 1984 to the present.  Lots of projects and
curriculum have grown up around them.  We've added MicroWorlds
(multimedia and simple animation aspects) and My Make Believe Castle to
the mix, but teachers still like and rely on the four single stroke
programs: Draw (turtle doodling); Blocks (stamping square spots of
colors); Build (stamping geometric shaped spots of color); BuildDraw
(has both Draw and Build modes.)

Now, here's the part that interests me.  This summer I decided we should
get all our Logo moved over to MicroWorlds and so I set out to rewrite
the Single-Stroke.  And I got confused:

1.  What is the pedagogic difference between using a keyboard and
buttons?  Is it the same as the difference between command line and
menu-driven?  Is it important?
2.  Things that were easily implemented in LogoWriter were HARD to do
with MicroWorlds, but I persisted.  Am I a curmudgeon who is stuck in
what I used to do or am I preserving some important stuff?
3.  What would an up to date single stroke Logo that took full advantage
of new Logos' features look like?  Is it My Make Believe Castle?  But if
that's true (certainly the parts about creating  an environment are
there), where's the turtle-math stuff?  At Logosium, this year in a
session on My Make Believe Castle, people were asked to throw out
adjectives describing a Logo environment.  All their descriptors
(problem solving, child-controlled, open-ended) were met by MMBC, but
not one person in the group said words like Math, geometry, coordinates.

For now, I'm going into school this next year armed with MicroWorlds
versions of the old single-stroke programs.  But, I've got the feeling
that I haven't had the time or resources to work them out pedagogically
and that they don't take advantage of new features.  And I have a
feeling that the original Lamplighter single-stroke programs WERE
thought out and did take full advantage of what was available at that
time.  So, since this LIST sometimes acts like a little on-line
think-tank, what do people think a good modern single stroke program
should be able to do... and why.
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