[SPG_Active_Members] First computer literacy class?

[Elizabeth Feinler]

Do any of you remember the "turtle" at MIT AI lab where children under school age learned to program the turtle to move in various directions by choosing the right cards with signs on them and putting them in the proper order.  This was being done in the early 70s.  I've forgotten who led the work but could probably dig it  out.  The idea was that kids could program computers before they even knew how to read.  That took "literacy" to a new level.  The kids loved it and could make the turtle do all kinds of stunts.

Cheers,

Jake
On Jan 10, 2012, at 3:32 PM, Dave Redell wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 11:52 PM, Ronald Mak <ron.mak at sjsu.edu> wrote:
> Folks,
>  
> Computer Science Prof. Stan Franklin at the University of Memphis, along with his colleagues, taught a computer literacy class in Spring 1982.
> ... 
> His question that he posed to me, and which I'm passing on to all of you, is whether this was the very first university computer literacy course. I suspect not, but I'm sure you all have opinions. Please tell Stan (franklin.stan at gmail.com) what you think and share with the rest of us!
>  
> -- Ron
> 
> In 1971, Laura Gould at UC Berkeley won the University's Distinguished Teaching Award for teaching a course in the new Computer Science Department entitled Computers in the Humanities. The basic approach was for humanities students to learn about non-numeric applications of computers by writing small programs in Snobol. Some of their course work was done on teletypes connected to UCB's experimental Cal-TSS timesharing system.
> 
> Dave
> 
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