{"id":3653,"date":"2016-03-02T14:11:35","date_gmt":"2016-03-02T19:11:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stager.tv\/?p=3653"},"modified":"2020-07-25T18:58:02","modified_gmt":"2020-07-25T23:58:02","slug":"code-org-oy-veh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stager.tv\/?p=3653","title":{"rendered":"Code.org – Oy Veh"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Hate to be a killjoy, but I just looked at one of the\u00a0Code.org<\/a>\u00a0activities for programming turtle graphics in App Lab.<\/p>\n

As someone who has taught various dialects of Logo to kids and teachers for 34+ years, I was horrified by the missed learning opportunities and design of the activity. My concerns are in lesson\/interface design and lost learning opportunities.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/studio.code.org\/s\/cspunit3\/stage\/2\/puzzle\/1<\/a><\/p>\n

First of all, you connect any blocks and then hit Next. It doesn’t matter if you solve the actual problem posed or not.<\/p>\n

Second and MUCH more importantly, ALL of the power and intellectual nutritional value of turtle geometry is sacrificed in order to teach a much simpler lesson in snapping blocks together in service of “efficiency.”<\/p>\n

The power of turtle geometry is well – geometry, also measurement, and number. There are no numerical inputs to the turtle geometry blocks and all of the turns are in 90 degree increments.<\/p>\n

The use of Javascript (presumably the blocks were added to the environment for this exercise and are not actual primitives) adds needless and confusing punctuation to the command structure WITHOUT the benefit of allowing users to change the input to FD or LT. Therefore, any opportunity to explore powerful mathematical ideas<\/p>\n

As we approach the 50th anniversary of Logo and are celebrating the 35th anniversary of the publication of Mindstorms – Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas<\/a>, it sure would be nice if\u00a0Code.org<\/a>\u00a0would learn some fundamental lessons of children, computers, and powerful ideas instead of depriving kids of an opportunity to learn mathematics while learning computer science.
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Discussion:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since posting the above statement to a CS discussion forum on Facebook, Hadi Partook – founder of Code.org responded as follows.<\/p>\n

\nGary, the goal of this course isn’t to teach turtle programming. Most of the students in our course sequence would have done that years earlier. This is a high school course to introduce students to JavaScript (including the syntax) and making apps. It\u00a0begins with a few turtle stages because turtle programming would be familiar to these students as a concept fully explored in our CS Fundamentals courses – including all the geometric glory you mention, and problems that tell you whether you solved them or not. In our high school course the theme isn’t “solving puzzles” because it’s about “making apps,” with just a few turtle examples to carry forward from something students already know.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Hadi, I wish I shared your optimism that kids in your high school courses had experience with turtle geometry. I found the design of this unit clickable with very little nutritional value, especially since its web-based design implies little teacher interaction or scaffolding. If the turtle “blocks” used in the example are merely an exercise in sequencing, then they need no punctuation on them whatsoever. If I desired to change the angle or linear units, there was no way to do so (at least no way obvious to me).<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Therefore, from a design perspective, there are several problems with the lesson. They include:<\/div>\n
    \n
  • Low engagement<\/li>\n
  • Limits on student creativity, exploration, and tinkering<\/li>\n
  • A missed opportunity for students to learn\/use mathematical ideas\u00a0while<\/em> learning Javascript<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
    I am NOT asking that the lessons yell at kids for being wrong or test them along the way. That would make things worse.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Hate to be a killjoy, but I just looked at one of the\u00a0Code.org\u00a0activities for programming turtle graphics in App Lab. As someone who has taught … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[427,434,429,431,438],"tags":[1340,1408,672,1137],"class_list":["post-3653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-policy","category-learning","category-project-based-learning","category-teaching","category-technology","tag-code-org","tag-javascript","tag-logo","tag-turtle-geometry"],"yoast_head":"\nCode.org - Oy Veh - Stager-to-Go<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/stager.tv\/?p=3653\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Code.org - Oy Veh - Stager-to-Go\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Hate to be a killjoy, but I just looked at one of the\u00a0Code.org\u00a0activities for programming turtle graphics in App Lab. 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