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RIP, Seymour Papert. Scratch is the spiritual successor to Logo. As Scratch becomes more and more popular, it has been sad to say that there is a tension betw

RIP, Seymour Papert. Scratch is the spiritual successor to Logo. As Scratch becomes more and more popular, it has been sad to say that there is a tension between the spirit of Scratch and commercialization. Scratch is all about exploration and making mistakes and experiential learning. However, there is a deluge of companies who are trying to create curriculums for Scratch that fit into the traditional School lesson models (canned, cut and dry). Here are some of the better alternatives: Google has developed the CS First program which uses Scratch. The interesting thing about this program is that it tries to scale the problem of teaching CS by making it less necessary for the teacher to know CS. https://www.cs-first.com/ https://www.cs-first.com/ There is also a curriculum guide for Scratch. http://scratched.gse.harvard.edu/guide/ http://scratched.gse.harvard.edu/guide/

sitkack 10y ago
When we learned Logo, the teacher was learning right along with us. What a teacher can do, is encourage metacognition, so when a child either gets or not-gets something, they can organize it in their mind. I like scratch, but it seems so Bubble Gum. Logo on an Apple II had a beautiful austerity to it.
- jhbadger 10y ago
  Logo doesn't get enough credit. It is more than just a system for turtle graphics, but a real programming language with a lot of similarity to Lisp. Brian Harvey at Berkeley used to be proponent of even using it as an alternative to Lisp for teaching functional programming to undergraduates.
- wslh 10y ago
  And I think the best Logo implementation was on the TI 99/4A. It is called "TI Logo" and includes sprites. Full manual here: ftp://club100.org/programming/LOGO/TI%20LOGO%20(phm3109).pdf
pfooti 10y ago
While I'm a bit bummed about the general commercialization of some elements of Scratch, I think it's fair to say that there is an encouraging amount of work being done in parallel with Scratch that keeps us from living in a monoculture of blocks. As examples, the blockly [0] library makes it easier for devs to build blocks-based programming interfaces for a lot of systems. It's been used in App Inventor for building android apps [1], by some of the Code.org (and other) tutorials for hour of code, and excitingly there are some moves to build lego mindstorms programming environments in blockly too ([2] as well as a blog post from google that I can't find right now, ironically, stating they were working with lego on an official one) There's also snap [3], which started as a project at UCBerkeley to allow scratch users to build their own blocks (e.g., define functions, which was impossible in early versions of scratch), and is, excitingly, written in regular javascript rather than flash (scratch is still a flash app for the most part). There's some legacy notions in snap that make it not the easiest to use (it's all done on canvas elements, and some interface gestures don't work as well as their blockly counterparts, since blockly uses divs and css for blocks), but it's still great and free and open (and works on more devices). I'm sure there's other stuff out there I'm missing, including classic stuff (like the Boxer programming environment, of which I'm a huge fan), but Papert's legacy measured by the work and people has inspired directly and indirectly is enormous. 0: https://developers.google.com/blockly/ https://developers.google.com/blockly/ 1: http://appinventor.mit.edu/explore/index-2.html http://appinventor.mit.edu/explore/index-2.html 2: https://lab.open-roberta.org/ https://lab.open-roberta.org/ 3: http://snap.berkeley.edu/ http://snap.berkeley.edu/
- buovjaga 10y ago
  Adding one more: https://computinged.wordpress.com/2016/06/13/introducing-gp-a-general-purpose-block-language/ https://computinged.wordpress.com/2016/06/13/introducing-gp-... "GP is a new blocks-based programming language being developed by John Maloney (most well-known for developing Scratch), Jens Mönig (developer of Snap!), and Yoshiki Ohshima (one of the developers of Squeak EToys) in Alan Kay’s group. They are all part of the new partnership between Alan Kay and Y-Combinator Research: HARC (Human Advancement Research Community). GP started in the SAP-funded CDG (Communications Design Group)."
qwertyuiop924 10y ago
Scratch 1.4 is still the best version: Why? Because it was the last version of scratch built on MIT Squeak. There is nothing quite like discovering shift-click r, and seeing the code that built your environment for the first time. Also, check out Snap! the Scratch 2.0 successor to BYOB that is essentially a stealth Scheme.
ef4 10y ago
Yup. Most schools can't authentically do the things that Papert describes in Mindstorms. It goes against their very structure. I don't blame the commercial vendors -- they are following the public-policy-directed money. I blame the schools for their culture of top-down control and conformity.
- jkestner 10y ago
  And it goes with the grain in Montessori schools. I was introduced to Mindstorms by my mother, a Montessori educator with barely an interest in computers.
  - ef4 10y ago
    It does, and I think Montessori schools are great. My one complaint is that a lot of Montessori teachers seem to have a blanket distaste for all electronics that lumps the good (Scratch and Logo) in with the bad (passively watching videos all day).

sitkack 10y ago

When we learned Logo, the teacher was learning right along with us. What a teacher can do, is encourage metacognition, so when a child either gets or not-gets something, they can organize it in their mind. I like scratch, but it seems so Bubble Gum. Logo on an Apple II had a beautiful austerity to it.

jhbadger 10y ago
Logo doesn't get enough credit. It is more than just a system for turtle graphics, but a real programming language with a lot of similarity to Lisp. Brian Harvey at Berkeley used to be proponent of even using it as an alternative to Lisp for teaching functional programming to undergraduates.
wslh 10y ago
And I think the best Logo implementation was on the TI 99/4A. It is called "TI Logo" and includes sprites. Full manual here: ftp://club100.org/programming/LOGO/TI%20LOGO%20(phm3109).pdf

pfooti 10y ago

While I'm a bit bummed about the general commercialization of some elements of Scratch, I think it's fair to say that there is an encouraging amount of work being done in parallel with Scratch that keeps us from living in a monoculture of blocks. As examples, the blockly [0] library makes it easier for devs to build blocks-based programming interfaces for a lot of systems. It's been used in App Inventor for building android apps [1], by some of the Code.org (and other) tutorials for hour of code, and excitingly there are some moves to build lego mindstorms programming environments in blockly too ([2] as well as a blog post from google that I can't find right now, ironically, stating they were working with lego on an official one) There's also snap [3], which started as a project at UCBerkeley to allow scratch users to build their own blocks (e.g., define functions, which was impossible in early versions of scratch), and is, excitingly, written in regular javascript rather than flash (scratch is still a flash app for the most part). There's some legacy notions in snap that make it not the easiest to use (it's all done on canvas elements, and some interface gestures don't work as well as their blockly counterparts, since blockly uses divs and css for blocks), but it's still great and free and open (and works on more devices). I'm sure there's other stuff out there I'm missing, including classic stuff (like the Boxer programming environment, of which I'm a huge fan), but Papert's legacy measured by the work and people has inspired directly and indirectly is enormous. 0: https://developers.google.com/blockly/ https://developers.google.com/blockly/ 1: http://appinventor.mit.edu/explore/index-2.html http://appinventor.mit.edu/explore/index-2.html 2: https://lab.open-roberta.org/ https://lab.open-roberta.org/ 3: http://snap.berkeley.edu/ http://snap.berkeley.edu/

buovjaga 10y ago
Adding one more: https://computinged.wordpress.com/2016/06/13/introducing-gp-a-general-purpose-block-language/ https://computinged.wordpress.com/2016/06/13/introducing-gp-... "GP is a new blocks-based programming language being developed by John Maloney (most well-known for developing Scratch), Jens Mönig (developer of Snap!), and Yoshiki Ohshima (one of the developers of Squeak EToys) in Alan Kay’s group. They are all part of the new partnership between Alan Kay and Y-Combinator Research: HARC (Human Advancement Research Community). GP started in the SAP-funded CDG (Communications Design Group)."

qwertyuiop924 10y ago

Scratch 1.4 is still the best version: Why? Because it was the last version of scratch built on MIT Squeak. There is nothing quite like discovering shift-click r, and seeing the code that built your environment for the first time. Also, check out Snap! the Scratch 2.0 successor to BYOB that is essentially a stealth Scheme.

ef4 10y ago

Yup. Most schools can't authentically do the things that Papert describes in Mindstorms. It goes against their very structure. I don't blame the commercial vendors -- they are following the public-policy-directed money. I blame the schools for their culture of top-down control and conformity.

jkestner 10y ago
And it goes with the grain in Montessori schools. I was introduced to Mindstorms by my mother, a Montessori educator with barely an interest in computers.
- ef4 10y ago
  It does, and I think Montessori schools are great. My one complaint is that a lot of Montessori teachers seem to have a blanket distaste for all electronics that lumps the good (Scratch and Logo) in with the bad (passively watching videos all day).