Background
jLogo Programming
- Commanding a Turtle
- Pseudocode
- Adding New Commands
- Iteration & Animation
- Hierarchical Structure
- Procedure Inputs
- Operators & Expressions
- Defining Operators
- Words & Sentences
- User Interface Events
- What If? (Predicates)
- Recursion
- Local Variables
- Global Variables
- Word/Sentence Iteration
- Mastermind Project
- Turtles As Actors
- Arrays
- File Input/Output
Java
- A Java Program
- What's a Class?
- Extending Existing Classes
- Types
- Turtle Graphics
- Control Flow
- User Interface Events
Appendices
- Jargon
- What Is TG?
- TG Directives
- jLogo Primitives
- TG Editor
- Java Tables
- Example Programs
- *** New ***:
Installation Notes
Updates
- December 13, 2008
- January 6, 2012
- March 15, 2013
- January 20, 2014
- February 13, 2014
- July 29, 2014
- January 18, 2016
- January 29, 2016
- January 18, 2016
- January 29, 2016
- August 19, 2016
Lastly
Acknowledgments
This material has evolved over a period of fourteen years. The roots are in classes I taught at Longfellow Arts and Technology Middle School (LATMS) and continue to teach at UC Berkeley for BFOIT. It is also used in the area at Albany High School.
The initial "Introduction to Java" programming class was an idea that Nancy Elnor, the technology coordinator at LATMS, came up with. I "sort of" volunteered to do it in a conversation I had with Nancy at a the technology in education conference (NECC) in 1999.
It has turned out to be quite a challenge. Teaching computer programming to 6th through 8th grade students is much harder than I thought it would be. So, my thanks go out to the experts in this field. This set of notes is a combination of concepts I gleaned from books and papers written by Brian Harvey, Seymour Papert, George Polya, Elliot Soloway, and others. Everyone I've met at UC Berkeley has been inspirational, has helped out. Most recently, Mark Guzdial's Computing Education Blog has become a daily read. My thanks go out to all of them for their dedication to the art/science of education.
Also, I can not thank the students and teachers/mentors I've worked with as these web-based lessons evolved enough. Many of the projects in the lessons were suggested by students I've worked with. Teachers, and parents (even grandparents) acting as mentors, have made many suggestions that I've worked into the content. I learn so much from all those I interact with.
The new looks for the website are thanks to Florian Plank. Thanks Florian!
Here is a short list of my favorite sources of enlightenment:
Berkeley Foundation for Opportunities in Information Technology
Watch a short video that shows what BFOIT is doing...
Books and Papers
- Advanced Logo: A Language For Learning, Michael Friendly. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 1988.
- Artificial Intelligence and Education (Volume 1) Learning Environments and Tutoring Systems, Robert W. Lawler, Ablex Publishing, 1987.
- Being Fluent with Information Technology, Committee on Information Technology Literacy, National Academy Press.
- Berkeley Foundation for Opportunities in Information Technology (BFOIT): A Decade of Broadening Participation
- Changing Minds: Computers, Learning, and Literacy, Andrea A. DiSessa, MIT Press.
- The Children's Machine, Seymour Papert, BasicBooks.
- The Computer Continuum, Kurt Lauchner, Zenia Bahorski.
- Computer Environments for Children, Cynthia Solomon, MIT Press.
- Computer Science Logo Style, Brian Harvey, MIT Press.
- Designing World-Class E-Learning, Roger C. Schank, McGraw-Hill.
- From Molecule to Metaphor, Jerome A. Feldman, MIT Press.
- High-Tech Heretic: Why Computers Don't Belong in the Classroom. Clifford Stoll, Doubleday.
- How to Solve It, G. Polya, Princeton.
- In Code, Sarah Flannery with David Flannery, Workman Publishing.
- Introduction to Computing and Programming in Java: A Multimedia Approach, Mark Guzdial & Barbara Ericson, Prentice Hall.
- Investigations in Algebra, Albert Cuoco, MIT Press, 1990.
- The Java Programming Language, Ken Arnold & James Gosling, Addison Wesley.
- Java: The Good Parts, Jim Waldo, O'Reilly.
- Learning Mathematics and Logo, Celia Hoyles, Richard Noss, MIT Press, 1992.
- The Mathematical Universe, William Dunham, John Wiley & Sons.
- Mindstorms, Seymour Papert, BasicBooks.
- A Model Curriculum for K-12 Computer Science: Final Report of the ACM K-12 Task Force Curriculum Committee, CSTA, ACM.
- Personal Dynamic Media, Alan Kay and Adele Goldberg, IEEE Computer, March 1977.
- Schools for Thought, John T. Bruer, MIT Press, 1993.
- A Small Matter of Programming, Bonnie A. Nardi, MIT Press, 1993.
- The Society of Mind, Marvin Minsky, Simon & Schuster.
- Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, Harold Abelson, Gerald Jay Sussman with Julie Sussman, MIT Press.
- Teaching the Nintendo Generation to Program, Mark Guzdial & Elliot Soloway, Communications of the ACM.
- Thinking About Logo, John R. Allen, Ruth E. Davis, John F. Johnson, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
- Visual Modeling with Logo, James Clayson, MIT Press.
- What's Math Got to Do With It? Helping Children Learn to Love Their Most Hated Subject - And Why It's Important for America, Jo Boaler, Viking, 2008
Web Sites
- Brian Harvey, UC Berkeley
- Computing Education Blog (Mark Guzdial)
- Engines for Education
- Interactive Programming in Java, Lynn Andrea Stein, MIT CS101
- java.sun.com
- The Logo Foundation
- LogoThings (Cynthia Solomon's Logo Wiki)
- Media Computation Teachers Website
- The MIT Logo Memos (compiled by Andru Luvisi)
- Scratch
- Wikipedia: Logo (progamming language)
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