One more option is to use LOGO programming language.

4-year old *really* use it. There are such experiences.

Raimundas Vaitkevicius


On Thu, 21 Feb 2002 G.J.Tielemans at dinkel.utwente.nl wrote:

> Depends of the feeling you want to give them:
> 
> ****** You can program machines to do what you say?
> 
> The example of Andreas Raab?
> - give them a car that can follow a track under the car and then let then
> paint a crazy-racetrack..
> - different cars with different progammed tracking-systems?
> - he you, which car should do the best on this track?
> 
> *********** Another feeling you can give them is using a computer as a tool
> - in this area my favorite for youngsters is the animation-creation page of
> Squeakland
> - For older ones: Alice in Wonderland (the original)
> 
> 
> ************* A real programmers feeling:
> - ask them to type a program exactly as you said (Supercallefragulous...)
> - ask them to start the program (When I did type from Mark's book the little
> 5 line program that cuts out a piece of the screen and did turn-around it, I
> was stuck by this feeling, while I take it for granted to open a 3D-tool and
> change the place of the sun in that scene with a handle..)
> 
> 
> **************** tackling common sense about clever machines?
> - Another experience from the old days: when we demonstrated to parents and
> teachers the use of the first homecomputers we asked them to write line by
> line a basic-program.
> (Yes, I did control that machine-feeling..)
> 
> Which program? No not hello world but that other one: What is the capital
> city of... (yes the education area)
> 
> On of the parents brought in the program:
> line 1: show question
> line 2: get userinput
> but before bringing in the third line where the answerhandling took place,
> this parent started the program and said it worked, even without that third
> line!!
> 
> The question was shown on the screen, 
> the parent gave the correct answer,
> and the machine said OK
> 
> Then I asked this parent to run the program again and give a wrong answer..
> the machine said again OK... (because this Dutch machine said always OK when
> the program-run was ended..)
> 
> When I showed this parent how you had to teach this machine to handle the
> answer, 
> the only reaction was disappointment and the question: 
> "Where do you need amchines for if you have to teach them everything."
> 
>  (creating a morph with some program building block sentences you can take
> out a cabinet and place on the canvas to compose a program? and the test
> it?)
> 
> ************************* Another favorite in the old days was the learning
> machine:
> Let the computer guess which animal you have in mind and when it is worng it
> can learn to remember your animal for the next run.. (I still have a
> 1987-version in Basicode,  the Dutch Basic-esperanto from the 80s, running
> under DOS (PC) and one day I will create a remake in squeak... ) 
> 
> ************************* Good old Eliza (just for fun: feeding eliza-s
> vocab is for older children)
> ************************* Game of life? older children
> 
> ************************* Hangman in the versions where the child can bring
> in the words (8-years old? allow wrong spelling?  
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: cg at cdegroot.com [mailto:cg at cdegroot.com]
> Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2002 1:01 AM
> To: squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org
> Subject: Re: Showing the essence of programming in 20 minutes to
> schoolkids -
> 
> 
> These seem to be more applicable to demoing Squeak. Whereas my intent
> (well-understood by Andreas) is to use Squeak as a tool (if necessary, if
> possible) to explain the essence of our work. Which basically boils down to
> paid riddle/puzzle solving, not?
> 
> (whether it's riddle of puzzle solving depends on the quality of the specs
> :-)).
> 
> 
> Jerzy Karczmarczuk <karczma at info.unicaen.fr> said:
> >1. Show that computers can hold THINGS which obey simple commands. Not only
> >   textual: Bunny jump.  grasshopper move. etc., but also *gestual*. Show
> >   that anybody, even a 5-year old Master can communicate with those
> >   objects.
> >
> >2. Show that the objects are persistant, that the kids may do something
> they
> >   find nice, and 
> >   a. they may send it to their pals. They may share it!
> >   b. they may *keep* it for a few minutes, or a week; they may change it.
> >
> >3. Show that the environment is safe. That they can't really spoil
> anything.
> >   (Weeelll, we know they can, but keep that secret for a moment...)
> >
> 
> 
> -- 
> Cees de Groot               http://www.cdegroot.com     <cg at cdegroot.com>
> GnuPG 1024D/E0989E8B 0016 F679 F38D 5946 4ECD  1986 F303 937F E098 9E8B
>