Hi Tom
Did you get my post of a perceptron?
An opinion (I teach computer to 6th-8th at present). A fairly wise
person once said all these comments about this language vs that language
are somewhat misplaced. Most computer languages I am familiar with (and that is
around 10 or so) have good points and bad ones. Some 'applications' are easier
to do in one versus the other.
My experience on the educational level has been similar (and I have
taught other than junior high). BUT at this level I ask myself how does
learning a language help my students do better in math, english, etc. And,
with Logo I find that I can touch some of these areas quite well, but Logo
is no substitute for a good wordprocessor though.
Now if I believed in teaching programming at this level (I do but
feel that it isn't a priority for everyone), then I would pick from the
languages you listed topics. For example, I like loops, conditionals, and
strings in BASIC, recursion, graphics, and procedures in Logo, numbers,
arrays, and records in Pascal (and a bunch of other stuff in other languages).
Again, I really like Logo at this level. I get to reinforce concepts introduced
in other academic areas. It is also an excellent approach to symbolic
manipulation and last, but of great importance, my students (even the less
motivated) enjoy it because it is very visual.
Ed Wall
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