Informatics in Logo style: Today

Darina Dicheva
Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics,
University of Sofia
e-mail: darinad@fmi.uni-sofia.bg

Abstract: This paper is an attempt to discuss the benefits and shortcomings of using Logo based on the
recent Logo related research and practice. It reflects the Bulgarian experience in teaching and using
informatics in a Logo context.

1. Introduction
The title of this paper suggests presenting an overview of learning and teaching in a Logo context. This
may sounds rather assuming. However, the current research and practice in relation to Logo is so
developing, so diverse, so widespread that giving an overview would be doomed to failure beforehand.
This presentation does not pretend to give the overview. It is rather an attempt of the author to discuss
the benefits and shortcomings of using Logo based on the Bulgarian research and experience in
teaching and using informatics in a Logo context and on the presentations at the recent Logo
conferences.

2. Logo today
2.1. Logo - Philosophy

Logo language, developed by Seymour Papert at MIT, is based on the philosophy of discovery
learning. The turtle is used as an object to think with while the user is playing with Logo. The emphasis
is on exploring, experimenting, experiencing, and acquiring powerful ideas that relate to mathematical
concepts and problem solving strategies simply by way of discovery (Papert, 1980). Papert's work on
Logo language was greatly influenced by Piaget's theories about child development and learning
processes at various stages of development. According to Papert, Peagetian learning is learning
without being taught or learning without a curriculum. Children instead build their own intellectual
structures through interaction with the environment (the Logo environment in this case).
In his famous book Mindstorms. Children, computers, and powerful ideas Papert advocated Logo
learning in children on the basis of two major hypothesis:

Logo programming contributes to the acquisition of general thinking and problem-solving skills,
that can be transferred to other content domains;
Logo provides an ideal environment for learning basic mathematical concepts such as angle,
polygon, variable, function, recursion, etc.

Moreover, according to the self-discovery approach, which supports the constructivist view of
learning, Logo programming skills can be acquired in the same natural and spontaneous way in which
the child learns to speak.
What the experience with Logo shows fifteen years later? If we look in the Proceedings of the
European Logo conferences we could get a pretty informative picture of the current state of research,
use, and new implementations of Logo.

2.2. Logo - Research

A good number of studies have been carried out aiming at testing Papert's two hypotheses. A series of
those investigations based on Papert's self-discovery pedagogy did not report any supporting evidence
for a cognitive effect of Logo learning (De Corte & Verschaffel, 1989). In fact the discovery approach
wasn't rejected but instead was questioned. Consequently the view that the acquisition of the
programming skills would somehow happen to the children due to the unique characteristics of Logo
language (Leron, 1985), was largely abandoned, and a broad consensus emerged that Logo
environments - while still stimulating students own construction of their knowledge and skills - should
at the same time provide systematic guidance and mediation to support their acquisition of problem
solving skills in programming, and possibly their transfer to other domains and situations (De Corte,
1993; Noss & Hoyles, 1992). Consequently, lots of research efforts have been put in investigating
issues related to effective teaching, learning, and using Logo and Logo-based environments.
An expending tendency in the recent Logo research is the development of Logo-based microworlds.
Though the concept of microworld is a key notion in the Logo approach, this notion seems to be rather
vague and its definition varies with the different authors. For example, for Lawler (1987), they are
virtual worlds for creative actions, Papert (1987) insists on the notion of transitional object, that help
to manipulate abstractions. Valcke (1989) summarizes the arguments for the development of
microworlds in an educational framework:

to meet special characteristics of the target group, e.g. non-readers;

to integrate the Logo activities into the curriculum;
to help the teacher to manage the learning process of all the pupils.

The latter argument is important. Indeed, the full Logo version offers too many learning opportunities
to the pupils and it is difficult for the teacher to control, direct or support the different learning
processes going on. Thus microworlds make it possible to use Logo in fairly conservative teaching
settings.
Microworlds cannot be considered merely as a piece of software. A microworld is also the activities,
the didactical material, etc. In order to take full advantage of using a microworld a well chosen set of
assignments should be given to the students. Lapidot & Rachman (1993) suggest that a typical way of
using their combinatorial microworld consists of the following steps: (1) letting the pupils play with
home-made games that concentrate on a specific topic; (2) discussing the problem that arise from the
game (still in the game level); (3) introducing assignments that the class solves together, and, (4)
formalizing the problem. These steps follow well the Constructivism philosophy, in which the
formalism comes at the end.

2.3. Logo - Practice

As one could expect, Logo is most popular in the primary school level. The Becker study in the USA
revealed that about 40 000 primary school teachers use Logo in their classroom. Logo is quite used in
Europe, too. The EUROLOGO conference proceedings include many reports on using Logo in most of
the European countries. Logo seems to be widely spread, but we can also ask questions in relation of
the type of use of Logo. Is it only turtling as Doyle reported in relation to using Logo in the National
Curriculum in England? (Doyle, 1989, 1993)
Though the most natural integration of Logo is in the area of mathematics, most of the projects
reported are not related to direct use in mathematics. Lots of attention is given to projects aimed at
developing general thinking and problem solving skills in the children. Other areas in which Logo has
been widely used include language, design, and technology.
With the development of more powerful versions of the language and associated hardware Logo has
become popular even in the senior secondary school. I will mention just three examples: In Holland a
curriculum for a fundamental course in Informatics and a textbook Informatics with Logo has been
produced for junior secondary school level (Jansen, 1989). The textbook is in two parts, the first one
being an introduction to programming and the second one focusing on data handling. In Bulgaria,
Logo is used in a number of secondary schools in the regular Informatics classes (Sendova et al.,
1989b; Dicheva et al., 1996b). Au (1995) reports that in Australia, the use of Logo and Lego/Logo is
having a very important place in both the junior and the senior computing studies syllabi. In particular,
it has been used rather commonly in the teaching of certain parts of the syllabi such as monitoring and
control systems and graphical systems.

2.4. Logo - Technical Developments

Logo has undergone many generations of development in the last fifteen years. After Apple Logo
which gained a good popularity in the early 1980, we have witnessed the continual development of the
Logo language with more recent versions of Logo Writer, TC Logo, LCN Logo, Object Logo,
Comenius Logo, Microworlds, StarLogo, to name just a few. The new developments of some versions
of the Logo language are beginning to incorporate various multimedia features which makes it easier
for the students to use graphics, animation and sound in their work. For instance, one of the latest
versions of Logo, Microwords, includes typical multimedia features such as buttons, graphics (similar
to this used in common draw applications) and hypertext. StarLogo includes thousands of turtles and
patches which allows students to investigate creature-environment interaction through simulation.
These new features allow the students to keep up to date with the latest development of computing
technology and to develop new and vigorous ways of thinking about ideas, which correspond to the
original aims of the Logo language. We should also mention the Logo versions based on the
development of hardware to be used with the language, and specially the availability of Lego/Logo. At
last, let us mention the project LogoNet - a Logo telecommunication project (started in MIT Media
Lab), which is aimed at combining Logo and Internet. It would allow students and teachers to share
ideas and projects over the Internet via a LogoExpress and LogoNet software interface (Dickinson,
1995).

2.5. Logo - Teacher Training

It is obvious that teacher training initiatives (pre- and in-service) are of great importance to reach one
of the final goals of educational computing: integration into the curriculum. The question is how
teachers should be trained. The problem is that it is not only familiarizing with the Logo language what
the teachers need. In order for them to use effectively Logo and Logo-based environments a change of
their pedagogical attitude is also necessary. And the last takes lots of time and is not exactly a question
of training (Correia & Carvalho, 1989). For example, for young teachers, the problem is often that they
do not fully appreciate what children are capable of doing for themselves. Many of them feel that if
they are not actively teaching then they are not fulfilling their role. From the other side, many
experienced teachers need convincing that they do not need to be Logo experts to encourage their
pupils to investigate situations using Logo as a tool. Another problem for some teachers is that of
transfer of control of the learning process and class control. They feel that their classroom control is
threatened if pupils are allowed to explore situations freely (Eyre, 1989).
Taking into account the slowness of the pedagogical changes of the teachers we consider that it is very
important to produce manuals with multiple and different suggestions which would give the teacher
some reassurance in the exploration through Logo. Another contribution to solving the teachers'
difficulties in using Logo is the construction of structured contexts in Logo language in order to give a
stimulating point of start for the exploration of concepts, the development of capabilities, the creation
of alternative solutions, in the freedom and reversibility which Logo environment offers (Correia &
Carvalho, 1989).
An opinion shared by many is that teacher training will become successful (i.e. causing changes in the
actual teaching behavior of the teacher) when a long-term approach to training is adopted and if the
progression during this training is carefully planned. Logo should be integrated into a variety of
courses and in relation to a variety of objectives.
In the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, University of Sofia, we traditionally teach two pre-
service teacher training courses related to Logo: the first one is called Problem-oriented languages and
major part of it is devoted to learning and using Logo; the second one called School Informatics
discusses Logo use across the curricula. Recently, a new course of teaching mathematics in a
laboratory-type computer environment was introduced. At the end of this course the future teachers
work out projects containing different mathematical topics suitable for the discovery-learning and
experiment their proposals in a real class situations. In addition, a variety of in-service teacher training
courses are available.

3. Application of logo in mathematics

Most of the attempts to apply Logo within subject matters fields are concentrated in mathematics and
specially in geometry. This is quite natural giving that Logo comprises the famous microworld - Turtle
Geometry which is a different style of doing geometry, namely a computational style (Abelson &
DiSessa, 1981). In the Turtle Mathland the educational question is not how to teach the existing school
math but rather how to reconstruct mathematics or knowledge in such way that no great effort is need
to teach it (Papert, 1980).
It is believed that using Logo would make mathematics explicit. When developing their projects the
pupils use implicitly many mathematical concepts and skills (which haven't been necessarily formally
studied), e.g. they use symmetry, they use variables, they practice estimation in various ways, they
break problems down into more manageable parts and learn to work more systematically. So pupils
who use Logo are engaged in various mathematical processes, though they don't really realize this
since their goal is, for example, just to draw a picture.
Despite the numerous attempts toward a real integration of Logo in school math, a widespread view is
that Logo has until now not had substantial impact on mathematics education in general, and geometry
teaching in particular (see also Noss & Hoyles, 1992; Kaput, 1992). According to Noss and Hoyles this
is partly attributed to the discrepancy between doing Logo and doing mathematics: it is mostly taken
for granted that interacting with Logo objects is identical to doing mathematics, or will spontaneously
lead to mathematical activity. However, it has now become clear that working with Logo does not
necessary induce in children searching for mathematical structures and relations.

3.1. Mathematical Microworlds

In the Logo community, there is a consensus about the advantages of using microworlds. The main
purpose of Logo-based mathematical microworlds is to enable teachers to provide an environment in
which pupils might focus more explicitly on some areas of mathematics. At the same time the pupils
will be able to retain all the benefits of working with Logo. Most of the microworlds just provide a
number of extra primitives. The user always has the full power of the Logo language available to him
and whatever the microworld provides is additional to that power. Many microworlds projects have
been presented at the European Logo conferences, e.g. A.T.M. Logo microworlds, including MULTI -
a microworld allowing multiple turtles to be used to explore problems such as curves of pursuit, and
LOCUS, which extends the use of multiple turtles to allow the exploration of loci (Pratt & Ainley,
1989); 2-D and 3-D Coordinate Systems Microworld (Klotz & Close, 1991); MicroBridge - a
microworld in the area of combinatorics based on using a Bridge-like card game (Lapidot & Rachman,
1993), to mention just a few.
There are a few examples of really powerful Logo-based mathematical microworlds enriching the
language with tools and resources so as to support creating in the classroom an effective learning
environment in which students become active learners of mathematics guided by their teacher. An
example of such a learning environment is GEOMLAND, a computer system developed at the
University of Sofia under the scientific guidance of B. Sendov.

3.2. GEOMLAND - A Powerful Learning Environment in Geometry

The GEOMLAND project was inspired of observations that some children could not always
understand the mathematically talking turtle. Furthermore, the mathematical objects the pupils come
across in the secondary school become more and more complicated and the basic Logo possibilities -
not quite adequate.
GEOMLAND represents a mathematical laboratory (Sendov & Dicheva, 1988) designed to stimulate
pupils at formulating and testing conjectures, which are considered to be the main activities of doing
mathematics. This laboratory offers tools for constructing, manipulating, and measuring geometrical
objects. By using them the student can carry out various experiments with the objects, can explore their
properties, and on the basis of these experiments can formulate conjectures and verify them.

3.2.1. GEOMLAND - the language

GEOMLAND is a language-based system, as opposite to some similar geometric systems for direct
manipulation of objects, e.g. Cabri-Geometry (Laborde & Laborde, 1991; Bellemain & Dagdilelis,
1993) and Geometry Sketchpad (Jackiw, 1991). It is designed as a Logo extension enriched by tools
for working directly with geometric objects such as points, segments, lines, circles, vectors and sets of
such objects. The pupil could work either in Logoland or in the Flatland - the world of the plane-
geometric objects. There, the child cannot control the turtle anymore but can create geometric objects
and manipulate them. All the other Logo tools are common, e.g., the assignment, loop, and conditional
commands. An important aspect of GEOMLAND is that the program remember the instructions
performed as a procedure which could be observed, changed and executed again afterwards.
Each object in GEOMLAND is characterised by a name, a value, an image and its relationships to
other objects. The geometric values match the data types POINT, LINE, RAY, SEGMENT, CIRCLE,
VECTOR SET, VISUAL and are specified by a number of components. For instance, the components
of a point are its X-coordinate and Y-coordinate, the components of a circle are its center and radius,
etc. Three basic types of primitives are included for manipulating with geometric values: (i)
constructors - to create an object given its components; (ii) selectors - to extract components of an
object; (iii) modifiers - to modify a specified component of an object. Here are some examples:

POINT 50 60 - outputs a value of type point.

LENGTH SEGMENT POINT 0 0 POINT 90 40 - outputs the length of the segment with end
points, having coordinates (0,0) and (90,40).

Objects can be constructed and modified by the OBJECT command. It creates an object with a given
name and displays it on the screen. The following commands would construct a triangle ABC and
display it on the screen:

OBJECT "A POINT 40 0

OBJECT "B POINT 0 -30
OBJECT "C POINT 20 -40
OBJECT "c SEGMENT :A :B
OBJECT "a SEGMENT :B :C
OBJECT "b SEGMENT :C :A

The OBJECT primitive is richer than MAKE since it not only assigns a value to the name but also
displays it if the value is of a geometric type. It is possible to modify some of the components of an
object in which case the object is automatically modified too, obtaining a new value and a new image.
If we want further on to construct the altitude in the above triangle ABC passing through the vertex C
we could use the following commands:

OBJECT "LC LINE :C 90 + HEADING :c

OBJECT "C1 ISEC :c :LC
OBJECT "hc SEGMENT :C :C1

The above solution could be also represented functionally with a single OBJECT command:
 OBJECT "hc SEGMENT :C ISEC :c LINE :C 90 + HEADING :c

3.2.2. Advantages of using GEOMLAND

Among the main advantages of using GEOMLAND are the following:

It helps pupil's reflection - in order to create a geometric object the pupil must know exactly
which are the elements determining it, i.e. its characteristics, properties and relations between
them;
When dealing directly with the objects the pupil sees immediately the result of the operations
having been performed. It is hoped that this would contribute to building a good intuition for
some properties in the field;
GEOMLAND makes it possible for the traditional mathematics class activities to be enriched by
a new type of activity, namely setting and carrying out mathematical experiments;
GEOMLAND allows shifting the focus from the final result (the solution) to the process of
obtaining it. Indeed, documenting the pupil's steps in solving a problem as a procedure provides
significant opportunities for both teachers and learners to discuss and analyze the problem
solving process. They can compare different strategies and solutions; comment on their
advantages and shortcomings according to different criteria; and cultivate an awareness that their
work can be modified, improved, and developed (Sendova & Sendov, 1994);
The GEOMLAND language is teacher-friendly since it is very close to the natural language
used in plane geometry.

3.2.3. Using the GEOMLAND in a class setting

The first version of the system was developed in 1986 (Sendov et al., 1987). Since then it has been
popularized among the teachers in mathematics and informatics. Since 1987 it has been used in the
regular math classes in some specialized mathematical schools and in optional mathematical courses at
other schools. Since then lots of joint efforts of researchers and teachers have been put to prepare
appropriate teaching materials and to answer various questions related to the effectiveness of using
GEOMLAND in a real class setting, like: Can we support an exploratory, trying-things-out mode of
learning geometry in the class? Could the traditional curriculum be made learnable if it is taught in a
new and different type of school environment? How can teachers be encouraged to take a new role -
the one of a partner of the students in their mathematical discoveries? (Kolcheva & Sendova, 1993)
The experience of using GEOMLAND in regular classes (7th to 9th grade) shows that a new teaching
style responding to the natural wish of students to learn rather than to be taught has readily been
adopted. Teachers have adopted a new image in pupils' eyes - that of people daring to take risks by
saying: I am not sure. Let us try and see what will happen... instead of the traditional one of people
always knowing at least one solution of each problem. As for the students, they got used to exploring a
given math situation by varying its key aspects so as to extract the maximum from it; they happen to
reinvent known theorems and even to formulate problems whose answers could be a challenge even to
professional mathematicians (Sendov & Sendova, 1991).

4. Teaching informatics in logo style

Littlefield (1992) in a review of Harel and Papert's book Constructionism (1991) argues against the
assumption that there are educational magic points, and claims that effective learning still requires
good mediation and teaching Logo. Our own experience in using Logo at school showed that there
should be a good balance between discovery learning by the students, on the one hand, and systematic
guidance, and instruction, on the other. A crucial component in such an environment is the direct
instruction of problem-solving skills within the Logo context (see also De Corte, 1993).
This section describes the Bulgarian experience in teaching Informatics in a Logo context and is based
on the paper (Dicheva et al., 1996b).

4.1. Background

Bulgaria has a relatively old tradition in having informatics in the secondary curriculum. The first steps
go back to 1967 when programming was included as a separate subject in the curricula for the
mathematical schools. With the introduction of the microcomputers in the schools on a large scale
(1984 - 1986) different educational strategies have been experimented including such ambitious
projects as the Research Group of Education (RGE) projects on integrating the school curriculum on
the basis of informatics. Based on the positive experience of the RGE informatics project, a team of
researchers (the author included) wrote in 1987 textbooks named Mathematics and Informatics (8th
-12th grade) for the general educational system (Nikolov et al., 1988). These textbooks have been in
use since 1988 in many regular secondary schools. Among the general ideas adopted in Mathematics
and Informatics textbooks were:

Integrating informatics with other school subjects, mainly with mathematics;

Specifying branches in mathematics, informatics, linguistics and arts which students could
choose according to their own interests;
Using problem solving scenarios developed both vertically (in grades) and horizontally (within
the same grade) (Sendova & Nikolov, 1989);
Offering the transparent software approach through glass box toy systems (Dicheva & Nikolov,
1989).

4.2. Lessons Learned

Unfortunately, our initial idea for the students to have preliminary 2-week intensive introductory work
with Logo failed. Thus even teachers who were competent informaticians found it difficult to use Logo
for illustrating mathematical notions since the tools themselves needed mastering. Besides, the idea of
integrating informatics with mathematics worked well mainly when the informatics classes preceded
immediately the mathematics ones. (Having once experimented with mathematical objects in Logo
environment pupils were better prepared and motivated to prove theorems.)
For the sake of better integration some mathematical lessons in the textbook were re-arranged
differently from the classical tradition, which made the novelty too big for the mathematics teachers.
As a result the informatics topics were often left to the informatics teacher thus reducing the chance for
a real integration. The informatics teachers on their part did not like the limitations imposed by
mathematics lessons - most of them preferred a more systematic introduction of the informatics topics.
The exploratory spirit of Logo where debugging sometimes is substituted by de-goaling confronts with
the rigid time-table of the regular classes in informatics.
From the organizational point of view using the textbook required splitting the class (usually about 30
pupils) in 2 groups for the informatics part and finding another appropriate configuration (e.g. learning
foreign language) to make a shift with.
Last, but not the least, there is still prejudice among a significant part of the education society
(including some parents) that Logo is a childish language and consequently students in the secondary
school should learn something more professional, like Pascal or C++.

4.3. The New Textbook

Despite the technical, organizational and other problems encountered in using Mathematics and
Informatics these textbooks became popular and were appreciated by most of the teachers and loved by
the pupils. This was the reason for considering the idea of developing a new version of the textbook
entitled Informatics in Logo Style (Dicheva et al., 1996a) taking into account the lessons learned and a
good deal of teachers' recommendations. This step was by no means giving up the idea of integrating
Logo-informatics and mathematics. It was rather getting wiser after several years of happy marriage.

4.3.1. Requirements

The idea for the Informatics in Logo Style was that it would be an alternative of the textbook
Informatics with Pascal which was recommended by the Ministry of Education as a basic textbook for
the 10th grade school subject Informatics. The Ministry asked the authors to write the new book so that
it could cover in addition the optional informatics courses in the junior high school. Eventually, the
new textbook had to be a Logo based informatics book for students from 5th to 10th grade (11 to 16
year old students) in different forms of training at school: regular, optional, and extra-curricula
activities. This was quite a challenge!

4.3.2. The design principles

As its title suggests, the textbook was not meant to be an introduction to Logo programming but an
introduction to Informatics in Logo style. This means that it would hopefully bring the spirit of the
educational philosophy of the Logo community, which sees learning as a constructive process.
When thinking of a school informatics curriculum we should mention the two common perspectives: to
prepare students for computer programming jobs or to help them become competent users of
informatics tools. Neither of these perspectives in its extreme form seemed to us satisfying from
educational point of view. In the informatics classes the students should not learn to program but
rather should program (in order) to learn.
In our view the school informatics should pursue two main goals:

to introduce the basic concepts, formal structures and methods of informatics;

to acquaint the students with various computer applications in the real life.

An elegant way of achieving these goals is to bridge the gap between the two extreme approaches
programmers vs. users.
Based on the view of recognized researchers in the field and on our personal experience we consider as
important three stages in students' study of informatics. In the first one they must learn the rules of the
game, i.e. the syntax and the semantics of the programming language (see also Harvey, 1985). At this
stage the novices need much practical experience. At the second stage the students get acquainted with
ideas, formal structures and methods of Informatics. At the last stage the goal is twofold. On one hand
- to give the students an idea of reasonable use of computers in various fields, on the other - to make
them familiar with the basic principles of developing computer systems.

4.3.3. Contents of the textbook

The textbook is structured in three modules corresponding to the considered stages of studying
Informatics:

1. Introduction to Programming
2. On more serious informatics topics
3. More informatics and applications

The user-friendliness of the Logo environment was naturally transferred into user-friendly textbooks.
In the introductory part we have minimized the formal presentation and the technical details and have
provided in a meaningful context even the unfortunate necessity of learning the rules of the
programming language. This module starts with brief historical information about computers and
programming. Then some basic concepts such as commands, loops, variables, procedures, recursion,
conditionals and Boolean expressions, words and lists are introduced using the Bulgarian version of
Berkeley Logo. The presentation is based on examples which serve as a skeleton for developing
informatics ideas. Such an example is a spiral procedure where we start with a tail recursive
rectangular spiral and proceed with stepwise enrichment by introducing: inputs for the angle and for
increasements; then - a stop condition, and finally - complex logical expressions to check the data
validity, i.e. to make the procedure foolproof. The co-ordinate turtle is introduced intentionally late so
as to support cultivating a more geometrically consistent programming style in which absolute and
relative positioning of the turtle are not mixed. (This observation has been triggered off by a remark of
Sean Close's.)
The second module deals with more serious informatics topics. The importance and the role of the
local variables is considered as opposed to that of the global ones. Then the embedded recursion is
introduced by both a graphical and a word version of a typical recursive problem. To reveal the most
essential features of the recursion we involve this concept in different contexts: word and list
processing, number problems, and fractals. Further on the most common data structures are discussed:
list, array, set, queue, stack. Finally, such important informatics topics as sorting, searching and coding
of information are included.
The third module contains three branches which could be used by preference: (i)Informatics; (ii) Arts
and design applications; (iii) Linguistic and natural language applications. In the first branch we give
high priority to the approach of using glass-box toy systems. These are simplified models of computer
systems such as data base systems, electronic dictionaries, spreadsheets, etc. Students could use such a
system as a black box to experiment with and thus to get an idea about its functions. Furthermore, the
texts of the glass box toy systems are available to the interested readers and can serve as windows to a
more penetrated study of the software implementation principles. The remaining two branches are
meant to those who think they don't like the subject. Working in a field of their own interest (arts,
design, linguistics) would hopefully raise the motivation of pupils and would let them choose their own
way towards making best use of informatics.

5. Conclusion
It seems that there is still a long way to go to find Logo fully integrated into the normal classroom
setting. It is important to ensure that children are not subjected to a repeating sequence of writing fairly
trivial procedures, but are led towards using Logo as a proper investigation tool, finding out when
Logo is an appropriate tool and when it is not. Developments are needed in a wide variety of fields,
e.g. curriculum development, teacher training, linking Logo to other curriculum contents than
mathematics, etc.
Our personal future perspectives of Informatics in Logo style are in harmony with the Logo spirit: no
threshold, no ceiling in a 3-Dimensional space:

contents: extensions of the elective modules (both in variety and in volume) are envisaged;
software: the supporting software environment will be enriched with new glass box toy systems
and microworlds;
authorship: The authors of the textbooks see themselves as a part of a broader team (teachers,
students at university and school level) endeavoring to improve and further develop the textbook
and the supporting software.

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