Bob DuCharme
July 20, 2002
May 11, 2010: Now that I know about Snake Wrangling for Kids, an introduction to Python, I really don't see any point in teaching kids Logo anymore.
I was thinking about writing an introduction to programming for middle school kids using the Logo programming language. I wrote about 90 pages and decided not to pursue it, but have made an Acrobat file of what I did do available for anyone who wants it. It's 94 pages including the table of contents and glossary, and it introduces kids to the basic concepts of programming using UCB Logo.
I decided to use UCB Logo because it runs on PCs and the Mac, and when I had ideas for turning this into a complete book and publishing it, I thought it would have a better chance in the educational market if it used a Logo distribution that worked on both platforms. The fact that UCB Logo is free, and runs under Linux, are also nice bonuses.
You can download an Acrobat file of these 94 pages. The file is about 436K.
Berkeley Logo is also known as UCB Logo. Download a version for your operating system from its creator's home page.
Berkeley Logo's relationship to its editor is a bit flaky, so putting the logo.bat file shown below in the directory where you install Logo and pointing the startup icon at that batch file is the best bet. It uses Notepad instead of the Jove editor included with Berkeley Logo. (I found that the "bug patch" mentioned on the web page above just didn't do the trick.)