1. Introduction to the Project
This is a video produce by the Micro Electronics Unit in Wales in the 1980s. The speaker, Susan Haywood, then an infant school teacher in Newport, South Wales, discusses her six-year experience at an Infant School and her four-year journey using computers in the classroom, specifically with a floor turtle for three years. Her initial motivation stemmed from a recognition that her own children would grow up in a world where “computers were part of their everyday lives part of their bread and butter,” and she “didn’t want to be completely isolated from the sort of technology that they were using.” This personal interest led her to explore the potential of computers in the classroom, even before the Department of Trade and Industry scheme introduced computers to primary schools.
2. Acquiring and Setting Up the Floor Turtle
Haywood’s exposure to floor turtles came through a local authority in-service training course, where she learned about their use. She applied for a turtle through a scheme by the Council for Educational Technology (CET), which was distributing 90 turtles across England and Wales. Her school’s unique composition, including a “partial hearing unit” and an “assessment unit” for children with “severe problems,” allowed her to apply under this scheme, with the understanding that the computer would benefit both “special children but with mainstream as well.”
The floor turtle itself is described as “not particularly difficult to set up,” connecting via a special cable to the computer’s user port. A key feature is a “grip where you can put a pen,” controlled by a motor to raise or lower it, allowing children to create a “record of what they’ve done a trace of what they’ve done.” Haywood prefers children to use the turtle extensively before introducing the pen, believing this encourages them to recognise and learn from “mistakes.” The turtle also includes a “little loud speaker” that “will hoot.”
3. Introducing Turtle Graphics and the Concept Keyboard
Children begin by using a limited set of commands from Logo’s “turtle graphics” subset: “forwards and backwards left and right.” Crucially, they must provide a numerical value with each command (e.g., “right 90”). While forward/backward movements have arbitrary values depending on the software, turns are based on “degrees,” although children are not explicitly taught this term initially.
For very young children (as young as four), who are unable to type, Haywood employs a concept keyboard. This “pressure sensitive keyboard” has “126 separate cells” that can be “individually programmed very simply by the teacher.” Haywood uses “a set of overlays” with symbols, allowing children to simply touch a symbol for a command and then a “return key” (which they call “go”). This system allows children to learn commands without typing or using numbers initially, with overlays becoming “more complicated” as they progress, introducing varying forward/backward distances and turns (e.g., 90°, 60°, 30°).
Haywood initially programmed a return onto the end of each command, but found that children “weren’t really taking in what was happening,” leading her to introduce a separate “return key on in the middle” to encourage more deliberate thought. She also includes a “delete key and hoot.” She addresses teacher apprehension about programming concept keyboards, stating, “to do an overlay like this takes perhaps 10 or 15 minutes,” often using utilities like ‘star set’. The primary advantage of the concept keyboard is that it presents “only the information that you want them to have,” cutting out “all the clutter” of a standard keyboard, making it “a really good way of letting them put information into a computer.”
4. Educational Benefits and Pedagogical Approach
Haywood strongly advocates for the use of floor turtles, despite the “expensive equipment,” “lot of space,” and “long time” involved, because she believes “the benefits are worth the investment.”
4.1 Active Learning and Conceptual Understanding:
A central theme is the importance of active involvement in learning. Haywood argues that “the sort of learning that develops when children are actively involved is so much better than than learning by wrote or learning because it’s something you’ve told them.” She illustrates this with the example of drawing a square: a child drawing a square with the turtle “has to really think about what a square is” and “makes that part of his own intellectual framework almost.” This approach aligns with the work of Piaget, as “their originator was so influenced by the work of Pia in terms of the child building his own intellectual structures.”
4.2 Collaborative Learning and Mathematical Discourse:
Working with the turtle is described as a “very good cooperative exercise.” Children engage in “a lot of discussion,” even “arguing very often sometimes fighting,” but critically, “they’re discussing mathematical ideas…because it mattered to them not because it mattered to me.” An anecdote about three boys arguing over whether an irregular shape was a triangle (“No it’s not a triangle It obviously didn’t look like the triangles in their box of shapes.” vs. “Yes it’s got three sides and so it’s got to be a triangle.”) highlights this authentic engagement. This also fosters more accurate use of “mathematical vocabulary,” with children progressing from “the turtle’s looking where he’s going” to “it’s moving forwards it’s turning left.”
4.3 Number Sense and Abstract Concepts:
The turtle helps children “use numbers accurately” and “manipulate large numbers.” Haywood notes that young children often struggle with the relative size of numbers (e.g., “they don’t know that a thousand is is bigger than 100”), but through the turtle, they begin to assign “value and meaning to large numbers,” saying things like “100 will be too much” or “it’ll need to go half as far so it’ll have to go 20 instead of 40.” She argues against scaling down numbers for young children, as they “do use large numbers and they use them well.”
4.4 Control, Cause and Effect, and Self-Esteem:
Children take the turtle “very seriously,” viewing it as a “control device” and a “concrete representation of a screen turtle.” They “thrive on it” and “really do develop self-esteem.” A powerful anecdote recounts a four-year-old girl who, challenged by another child that she wasn’t “really controlling that It’s only a bit of paper meaning the overlay,” “whipped the paper off and she said ‘Look there’s numbers underneath.'” This demonstrates the child’s understanding of “cause and effect” and the sense of agency derived from controlling the sophisticated equipment. The turtle also allows children to acquire complex concepts like “angle” and “measure turn” much earlier than typically expected.
4.5 Spatial Awareness and Planning Skills:
Children relate the turtle’s movement to their “own body knowledge” and develop “spatial awareness.” Haywood also emphasizes the turtle’s unique ability to provide “one of the very few opportunities that we have to give young children children as young as five or six the opportunity to plan something before they do it.” Unlike construction toys where ideas evolve, with the turtle, children can “plan a series of commands that will move the turtle from one place to another,” record it, try it out, and make adjustments. Three children can also “share an idea of what that’s going to be” when working on a shared task with the turtle.
4.6 Responsibility for Learning and Teacher’s Evolving Role:
Children, once familiar with the turtle, can “set their own challenges,” often choosing “far more difficult tasks” than the teacher would set, suggesting teachers “underestimat[e] what children can do.” This shift towards children taking “more responsibility for what they’re doing” necessitates a “certain amount of change of role for the teacher.” The teacher must “not provide the answers” and be willing to “let children make mistakes sometimes,” intervening but allowing them to “work things out for themselves.”
5. Material Development and Dissemination
Haywood has spent “two or three years” developing and trialling materials in her own classroom. She was then “offered to conment to the micro electronics unit in Cardiff but funded by MESU to develop materials for other teachers to use.” Collaborating with another teacher in North Wales, they are producing a “pack of materials that will go right through from 4 to 11 and 11 plus,” including concept keyboard overlays, large floor mats, screen turtle materials, reference cards, and challenge cards. The goal is to make Turtle Graphics and Logo accessible, as teachers “often find it very difficult to use computers.” Haywood asserts that the materials are “so straightforward that that anyone can really start the work,” and that “once you get going it’s the children’s enthusiasm that carries you along.”
Watch the video in colour
