[IAEP] [Grassroots-l] OLPC in Kindergarten

[Bert Freudenberg]

On 17.06.2009, at 11:42, Tony Forster wrote:
>> Nobody knows the age limit on teaching graphical programming.
>
>
> Experience with Scratch and GameMaker is that it works at the whole  
> of a class down to
> grade 3 though I have had smart individuals down to grade 1. But I  
> note that the
> cognitive load is higher for these programming tools, they allow  
> multiple objects and are
> event driven. The beauty of Turtle Art is its simplicity, only 1  
> object, the turtle and
> no need to get your head around events and their associated actions.


When discussing this for pre-school kids you should definitively have  
a look at Mikael Kindborg's PhD thesis, and the associated software  
"Magic Words". He recently released it as open source (which misses  
some of the artwork, examples, and scenarios):

	http://www.comikit.se/

It's prepared to be localized with text or graphics.

Mac version:
http://www.comikit.se/DownloadMagicWordsMac.php
(unzip, double click "MagicWords.image")

Windows version:
http://www.comikit.se/DownloadMagicWordsWin.php
(unzip, double click "MagicWords.exe")

Linux + other platforms:
http://www.comikit.se/DownloadMagicWordsFiles.php
(unzip, type "squeak /path/to/MagicWords.image")

- Bert -