Re: LOGO-L> logo language

[Michael Tempel <michaelt@media.mit.edu>]

At 9:25 PM +0930 8/7/98, Bill Kerr wrote:
>The most thought provoking article about logo and learning that I have
>read is:
>Epistemological Pluralism: Styles and Voices within the Computer
>Culture  by Seymour Papert and Sherry Turkle
>In Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 1990, vol. 16, no. 1.
>
>They argue that the concrete style of learning of the bricoleur or the
>tinkerer has been unjustly sidelined by the dominant logical culture of
>the computing world. One point you need to be aware of about Logo is
>that it presents a radical challenge to traditional School culture.
>Evaluations that do not appreciate this social dimension of Logo will
>inevitably fall flat and reach uninspiring conclusions about it. Read
>one of Papert's 3 books if you really want to understand this point.
>(directed to ka.flood not Michael, who already understands this point)
>
>The Clements and Meredith article is a great one too but the
>Papert/Turkle article is a real  mind stretcher, even though I now
>believe it confused me about the real importance of abstraction in
>mathematics.
>
>-- Bill Kerr
>

I agree, Bill.  And to amplify on your point, I'd say that experimental
approach that underlies most of the studies cited by Clements and Meredith
is fundamentally inappropriate when applied to Logo.  This design looks for
the effect of one varialble while holding everything else constant.  So one
takes two groups of school kids, equal in all respects, applies a Logo
"treatment" to one group and not the other, and then measures some
dependent variable such as performance on a test.

The problem is that Logo is not about making little changes. It's about
changing everything.  The goal is to create a multifaceted, constructionist
learning environment in which Logo is one piece among many.  The key point
is that all components are then mutually supportive.  The experimental
approach, by the nature of its design, looks at Logo in an unsupported
context.

Researchers who do these kinds of studies dismiss my sort of argument as
anti-scientific.  No, it's just that other sciences - sociology and
anthropology - are more appropriate for studying Logo learning environments.

- Michael

P.S. Clements and Meredith do find that there is a widespread, moderate,
positive effect of using Logo when the dozens of studeies they cite are
taken as a whole.


--------------------------------------------------------
Michael Tempel                    tel: 212 579 8028
Logo Foundation                   fax: 212 579 8013
250 West 85th Street              michaelt@media.mit.edu
New York  NY 10024
http://el.www.media.mit.edu/logo-foundation/


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