In 1967, Seymour Papert, Cynthia Solomon, Wally Feurzeig created the first programing language for children, Logo. This page curates a growing collection of resources related to learning more about Logo and how to teach it.
History of Logo paper
Solomon, C., Harvey, B., Kahn, K., Lieberman, H., Miller, M. L., Minsky, M., Papert, A., & Silverman, B. (2020). History of Logo. Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages, 4(HOPL), 1-66.
Video discussion of Logo history
Dr. Cynthia Solomon and Dr. Wally Feurzig were interviewed by Dr. Celia Hoyles and Dr. Gary Stager at the Constructionism 2010 Conference, August 2010 in Paris, France.
Logo history Interview from Gary Stager on Vimeo.
Cynthia Solomon’s LogoThings web site
Lots of historic artifacts and resources curated by the mother of educational computing and co-creator of Logo, Dr. Cynthia Solomon
21st Century skills suggest that teachers should be able to read, understand, generalize, and apply the principles of these seminal texts to contemporary contexts. Reach out if you need assistance.
Modern Logo Dialects and Descendants
The Invent To Learn Guide to Block Programming
A curated collection of links to Logo-like environments and related resources post-2020. Turtle Art, Lynx, Snap!, Scratch, MakeCode, microBlocks, and more are detailed here.
The Logo Exchange
Logo Exchange archives (1982 – 1999)
Links to the complete archive of Logo Exchange journal issues for 17 years.
MIT Logo Memos
A collection of research papers from the MIT Artificial Intelligence and Logo Groups, 1971 – 1981
MIT Logo Conference Proceedings
MIT hosted legendary Logo conferences during the summers of 1984-1986. Here are the proceedings.
East Coast Logo Conference Proceedings
A Logo Conference, organized by Tom Lough, founder/publisher of Logo Exchange and Glen Bull of the University of Virginia, was held in Crystal City, Virginia (Washington D.C.) in April, 1987.
Classic Books
LogoWorks: Challenging Programs in Logo
A complete book of challenging Logo programming projects by Cynthia Solomon, Margaret Minsky and Brian Harvey in PDF form
Computer Science Logo Style by Brian Harvey
Veteran computer science educator and co-creator of Snap!, Dr. Brian Harvey, published three seminal books about computer science taught in a Logo environment. These three volumes constitute a thorough computer science education, at least for non-computer science majors. These texts are available for free online in HTML and PDF form.
Teaching with Logo
There were no bigger stars in educational computing in the 1980s than Dan and Molly Lynn Watt. Their 1986 book, Teaching with Logo: Building Blocks in Learning, is a model of progressive pedagogical practices in a modern computational context.
This long out-of-print classic text is being shared with the authors’ permission.
Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas
A PDF version of Seymour Papert’s seminal 1980 book, the first of his trilogy of books about modern learning, teaching, and parenting.
Exploring Language with Logo by E. Paul Goldenberg and Wally Feurzeig
Classic book about using linguistics, language, and word play as a basis for Logo programming. This link takes you to the Internet Archive where you can borrow a digital copy of the book for short periods of time.
Visual Modeling with Logo: A Structured Approach to Seeing
James Clayson’s classic book on art, design, mathematics, and computer programming in PDF form.
Turtle Confusion and Turtle Speaks Mathematics by Barry Newell
Dr. Barry Newell, is an astrophysicist who was was the Administrator (in the NASA sense) of Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories of the Australian National University. He now works on the dynamics of social-ecological systems. In his spare time (back in 1988), he wrote two classic books on Logo programming and mathematics, Turtle Confusion and the accompanying book for educators, Turtles Speak Mathematics. Turtle Confusion features 40 challenging turtle geometry puzzles in a mystery format and Turtles Speak Mathematics helps educators understand the mathematics their students are learning.
Apple Logo – Introduction to Programming through Turtle Graphics
The 1982 manual for one of the first major commercial releases of Logo.
Australian Logo Newsletters
POALL
In the late 1980s – early 1990s, Australian educator Peter Carter created his own Logo newsletter filled with clever programming project ideas. Here are the issues he was able to find, scan, and share.
- Issue 2-2
- Issue 2-3
- Issue 3-3
- Issue 3-4
- Issue 5-1
- Issue 5-2
- Issue 5-3
- Issue 6-2
- Issue 6-3
- Peter Carter bonus – Turtle Bunting (making flags in Logo)
OzLogo Newsletter
In the early 1990s, a group of Australian educators published a newsletter for Logo-using educators.
Logo Action Research
New Paradigms in Classroom Research on Logo Learning by Daniel Lynn Watt and Molly Lynn Watt
A research monograph (book) of teacher action research funded by the National Science Foundation.Watt, D. L., & Watt, M. L. (1993). New Paradigms in Classroom Research on Logo Learning. International Society for Technology in Education.
Logo Action Research paper by Daniel Lynn Watt and Molly Lynn WattMolly Lynn Watt & Daniel Lynn Watt (1993) Teacher Research, Action Research: the Logo Action Research Collaborative, Educational Action Research, 1:1, 35-63, DOI: 10.1080/0965079930010104
Miscellaneous Cool Stuff
Getting Started with ArtLogo
Links to Brian Silverman’s web-based Logo interpreter.
Logo Overnight by Mitchel Resnick
A collection of Logo programming challenges taking advantage of computing power and time.
Papers by Cynthia Solomon
Teaching Young Children to Program in a Logo Turtle Computer Culture
Report: Logo Learning and Teaching Styles
ACM SIGCUE BULLETIN, July, 1978, pps. 20-29.
A First Lesson
1974 Logo Working Paper 26
Articles by the Watts
Teacher-Made Microworlds: or Training Teachers to Use Logo Logo vs. Training Them to Teach It by Dan WattWatt, D. (1985). Teacher-Made Microworlds: or Training Teachers to Use Logo Logo vs. Training Them to Teach It Educational Computing Organization of Ontario.
The Power of Logo by Dan and Molly Watt (late 1980s)
Twenty Powerful Ideas by Molly WattWatt, M. (1985). Twenty Powerful Ideas. National Logo Exchange (September 1985).
Logo Quilt: A Collaborative Learning Project by Dan and Molly Lynn Watt in the May 1986 issue of Logo Exchange.This is the original seed that has blossomed into many projects, notably Josh Burker’s Turtle Art Tiles Project.
Gary Stager Article(s)
Scratch and the Negligent Homicide of Mathland (2020)
A Modest Proposal (2017)
Practical ideas for inspiring the teaching of computing to all students.
Logo Circa ’97: Worth a second look (1997)
Why Logo? – One Courageous School’s Attempt to Make Learning Personal (1993)