Tonyforster

http://tonyforster.blogspot.com/

forster at ozonline dot com dot au

Interests: Activities which maximise the opportunity for self-directed learning: low floor, wide walls and high ceiling with particular emphasis on the walls and ceiling. My favourites: turtleart, scratch, etoys.

Currently user testing turtleart and screencast

Preschool student Activities

Radia Perlman in the 70s when at student at MIT did extensive experiments with preliterate children and the LOGO turtle and built a number of interfaces for them. She also spent some time at Xerox PARC and did many similar experiments with chldren 3 years on up.

http://www.formatex.org/micte2006/virtual/pdf/582.pdf see fig 3 with plastic cards showing visual images of turtle commands

http://www.formatex.org/micte2006/virtual/ppt/582.ppt similar image

http://logothings.wikispaces.com/ towards the end, photo of Radia Perlman's Button Box for Pre-Schoolers

http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~mcnerney/personal-ubicomp.pdf more discussion than the above

Turtle Art - text free

To what extent could pre-literate children use Turtle Art?

Are graphics on blocks really better than text?

Does keeping text labels help develop literacy?

What graphics are best?

Some features, eg. the heap are unlikely to be used by pre-literate children, should they be omitted or retained with text labels?

The following graphic is a discussion starter

or another [suggested layout]

Text-less outdoor tutorial