קטגוריה: code

ההתייחסות למעבר מהדגש על כתב רהוט לדגש על תכנות מעניינת מאד, אבל עבורי מעניינת עוד יותר ההשוואה שקובן עורך בין לימוד התכנות היום לבין לימוד שפת ה-Logo בשנות ה-80. קובן כותב:

Computer scientists at that time, however, thought that teaching young children how to write code – I am still referring to the 1980s – would unleash children’s creativity and expression while teaching them to think sequentially and critically. Using constructivist ways of teaching, children would be able to transfer knowledge and skills from learning to program to other subjects in the curriculum. This innovation would transform traditional teaching and learning.

Failure of transfer-of-learning and school after school changing Logo to meets its institutional imperatives led to the demise of Logo in public schools.

Instead, these reformers advocate that young children and youth be taught programming languages as tools for computational thinking, a 21st century skill is there ever was one. I used the example of Logo, an innovation introduced into schools in the early 1980s as an earlier instance of school reformers as “true believers” in teaching coding to children. They wanted to alter traditional teaching and learning. That innovation flashed across the sky like a shooting star and within a decade, had nearly vanished.