ABSTRACT
Solomon describes how the children "made up hilarious sentence generators and became proficient users of their own math quizzes." This was the beginning of the first programming language for children, LOGO. Led by Seymour Papert at MIT and Wally Feurzeig and Dan Bobrow at Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN) research lab, over time, many people contributed and developed different versions of this child friendly version of the LISP programming language. However, LOGO engaged children in creating beautiful shapes, not calculating angles. They needed math to make a project of their choice. LOGO was carefully designed so young children could create their own personally meaningful projects. However, a top-down curriculum and an instructionist pedagogy could turn LOGO into a completely different tool in classrooms where teachers did not understand the principles of Constructionism. Papert's Constructionism believes that independent learning and discovery happen best when children can make, create, program, and design their own "objects to think with" in a playful manner.
