UPDATE: Project complete! Check it out here.
At Georgetown, I'm exploring a number of things that could be lumped under the heading of educational technologies. I'm trying to get both a broad and deep view of what's out there and what could be integrated into non-educational educational environments to help people develop problem-solving and critical-thinking skills. These things range from scalable and inexpensive tech like video games and simulations that don't require serious processing power to the less accessible world of VR headsets to the principles of human-computer interaction, user interface design, and more.
I'm particularly excited that I get to take a closer look at Seymour Papert's work in education this semester. Papert, among other things, is famous for creating the Logo educational programming language and accompanying floor turtles, which children could use to learn by doing. Much of his work was focused on children, but his ideas have been widely applied and have influenced many, including Alan Kay's Dynabook.
For the next couple of months, I'll be leading a group that is digging into Papert's constructionist theories and see how they're being applied in educational robotics today. If you're curious, I've included my project proposal below.
The Logo Floor Turtle as a System for Educating Children
In 1969, as a classroom full of seventh graders learned mathematics using the Logo high-level programming language, the educational researcher driving the effort, Seymour Papert, had an idea about a robotic turtle.[1] Papert saw the turtle as an “object-to-think-with.”[2] Using Logo, children would program the robot to move around the floor—a process in which they could learn geometry, among other things, by doing.[3] The Logo turtle was born.
Architecture
Papert dubbed the robot the “floor” turtle, not to be confused with the “light” or “display” turtle, which operated on similar principles but was a virtual object on a screen.[4] Initially, the floor turtle was made of a metal canister salvaged from a junk heap. It evolved into small, round, plastic robots with clear domes and wheels (example at right).
The turtle’s body included a motor as well as breaking and turning mechanisms so it could move. Floor robots had retractable pens on their underbellies to draw on a piece of paper or another surface.[5] And later models included touch sensors.
Computer workstations equipped with typewriter keyboards were part of the package too; there, users entered commands in Logo. The robots were tethered via a cable to these terminals so they could receive commands. The floor turtle system included computing technology to convert the abstract symbols it received—the “turtle talk”—into locomotion.[6]
Additionally, the system had a mechanism to determine and keep track of the robot’s position and heading. These, along with the turtle talk system, allowed the floor turtles to “do” what Papert called “turtle geometry.”[7]
Algorithm
The floor turtle’s input was a set of instructions that a child user wrote in Logo. Its specific physical outputs varied, but the overall result of interaction with the system was learning. According to Papert’s educational philosophy, constructionism, by interacting with and programming the turtle (or computers in general), “the child . . . establishes an intimate contact with some of the deepest ideas from science, from mathematics, and from the art of intellectual model building.”[8] In other words, the robot turtle played the role of an educator.
To program the robot, a child had to learn to code in Logo, which Papert and his co-developers created specifically for use in children’s education. At first, a child was taught basic instructions to make the turtle move, such as FORWARD and PENUP. Eventually, the child could create his or her own commands in Logo to forge his or her own learning path.[9]
In addition to prescribing that the user knew Logo, the floor turtle required general knowledge of turtle geometry. As part of the learning process, the child user had to see him or herself in the turtle’s position. This allowed children to use their knowledge of their own geometry to learn formal math as they navigated the robot through space.[10]
After children learned the basics, they could program the robot to draw lines and shapes on paper, use its touch sensors to navigate, play music, dance, and more.[11]
Processes inside the turtle-terminal blackbox translated the symbols entered at the terminal into physical action so the floor turtle could explore its environment and facilitate the broader learning process. That is, the computing system converted abstract Logo instructions into a language that the machine could execute, leading to physical actions. The focus is on the floor turtle here, but the learning process itself is a blackbox as well. Logo is a blackbox of symbols, as are Papert’s turtle geometry and other parts of the system.
Further Defining the Sociotechnical System
A child operated the floor turtle in an educational setting, such as a classroom. Yet, the system included not just the robot, tether, terminal, and child. Other humans supported the system, including teachers and developers who worked with the children as they learned the ropes. Developers also modified the system to improve functionality and fix problems.[12]
The floor turtle system depended on other computing and robotic advancements. Papert was not the inventor of the robot or even the turtle robot. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, personal computing did not exist; workstations were expensive and shared. The graphical user interface, high-level programming languages, and interactive computing were in early stages. The development of Papert’s technology depended on those that came before it and experimentation that was under way as he and others pushed the envelope.
Despite constraints on development, the floor turtle system provided a personalized educational experience and a new way of accommodating children’s individual learning styles and needs. Perhaps this could have produced better learning outcomes than traditional teaching had the system been widely used. It also could have impacted the development of educational curricula and regulations at an institutional level, and the ways in which children developed into adults and shaped society.
The technology reduced traditional reliance on human educators and shifted those teachers’ focus. Rather than developing lesson plans to teach basic mathematical principles, teachers moved to a support role that required them to learn programming and robotic basics. These shifts could have put some teachers out of jobs or pushed them into roles that they did not want. But floor turtles could have also freed them up for higher-order thinking. For example, without having to expend brain power on the basics, educators could think of novel problem-solving scenarios that could help a child develop his or her individual learning path.
Papert’s exact floor turtle was not widely adopted as an educational tool—in Papert’s words, for “practical and economic reasons.” The robot turtle had a tendency to break and was expensive, particularly compared to screen-based versions.
But the turtle, according to Papert, was always meant to be “a model for other objects, yet to be invented”—in the field of artificial intelligence, for instance.[13] And the technology and Papert’s ideas have in fact evolved in many ways with a variety of social impacts. For example, the MIT Media Lab’s Lifelong Kindergarten carries on in the spirit of Papert, particularly its popular Scratch programming language and community. Logo’s properties made it good for creating programmable agents that could be used to model emergent behavior; the NetLogo environment is one outgrowth of that. Turtle-like programmable robots, such as LEGO Mindstorms and the iRobot Create, are used as learning tools, and more. The shadow of Papert’s little floor turtle is a long one.
Notes
[1] See also Seymour Papert, Mindstorms (New York: Basic Books, 1980), 218.
[2] Papert, Mindstorms, 11.
[3] Alan C. Kay, A Personal Computer for Children of all Ages, (Palo Alto, CA: Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, 1972).
[4] Papert, Mindstorms, 56.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Papert, Mindstorms, 56.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Papert, Mindstorms, 5.
[9] Papert, Mindstorms, 56.
[10] Papert, Mindstorms. The turtle, for instance, turned in increments of degrees, concepts that children discovered through experimentation. This book includes examples and more in-depth descriptions of turtle geometry.
[11] Papert, Mindstorms, 12.
[12] Papert, Mindstorms.
[13] Papert, Mindstorms, 11.