On 17.06.2009, at 11:42, Tony Forster wrote: >> Nobody knows the age limit on teaching graphical programming. > > > Experience with Scratch and GameMaker is that it works at the whole > of a class down to > grade 3 though I have had smart individuals down to grade 1. But I > note that the > cognitive load is higher for these programming tools, they allow > multiple objects and are > event driven. The beauty of Turtle Art is its simplicity, only 1 > object, the turtle and > no need to get your head around events and their associated actions.
When discussing this for pre-school kids you should definitively have a look at Mikael Kindborg's PhD thesis, and the associated software "Magic Words". He recently released it as open source (which misses some of the artwork, examples, and scenarios): http://www.comikit.se/ It's prepared to be localized with text or graphics. Mac version: http://www.comikit.se/DownloadMagicWordsMac.php (unzip, double click "MagicWords.image") Windows version: http://www.comikit.se/DownloadMagicWordsWin.php (unzip, double click "MagicWords.exe") Linux + other platforms: http://www.comikit.se/DownloadMagicWordsFiles.php (unzip, type "squeak /path/to/MagicWords.image") - Bert - _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep