Capítulo relativo a la Argentina publicado en el libro "Logo Philosophy and Implementation", editado por Logo Computers Systems Inc., Québec, Canada, 1999.
This is my experience on Logo in Argentina, involving judgments of its value and development, an appreciation of its beauty and techniques and an interpretation of the present situation.
No author can escape from his singular first memories on a subject. I learnt about computers many years ago, in 1959, at the IBM Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory in New York on the occasion of having a scholarship at Columbia University. On one hand the subject seemed tedious as the only possible way of programming the computer was through machine language. On the other hand through this experience I became fully aware of John von Neumann's genial ideas which he clearly explained in his wonderful book The Computer and the Brain (1958): "… since the orders that exercise the entire control are in memory, a higher degree of flexibility is achieved than in any previous mode of control. Indeed the machine, under the control of its orders, can extract numbers (or orders) from the memory, process them (as numbers!), and return them to the memory (to the same or to other location); i.e., it can change the contents of the memory -indeed this is its normal modus operandi-. Hence it can, in particular, change the orders (since these are in the memory!) -the very orders that control its action-. Thus all sort of sophisticated order-systems become possible, which keep successively modifying themselves and hence also the computational processes that are likewise under their control". The preceding concepts enthusiastically enraptured me and I decided that I was going to be part of the new computer era.
Back in Argentina in 1960, I became a professor in several universities and carried out different projects in the computer field. Among these projects I set up the first Computer Center for Undergraduates at the School of Engineering in Buenos Aires University on the basis of an IBM-1620.
In 1963, as a member of the MIT Interamerican Civil Engineering Program I started to travel frequently to Boston and Cambridge. I was lucky enough to be a witness of one of the most wondrous phases of the advance of computer ideas: the MAC Project at MIT where I met Marvin Minsky, J. C. R. Licklider, Robert Fano, Ivan Sutherland and many other founders of the new world. Lately I met Seymour Papert and my passion and advocation to Logo was ignited.
My awareness of the power of computers pushed me to get involved with the MAC Project in 1964. I was able to log in MIT IBM-7094 time-sharing system from Buenos Aires, Argentina, -thousands of miles away- via a radio teletype link. This experience deeply influenced me and was the onset of my research and commitment to the role science and technology can play in its relation with society and education.
In the seventies, visiting Papert's Logo projects like the Brooklin Public Schools in Boston and Computers in City Public Schools sponsored by the New York Academy of Sciences, my concern was focused on how the information technologies could help kids find new and better ways of learning. In 1980 I was also present at the pioneering Logo experience at the Lamplighter School in Dallas, Texas. I was delighted to see the happiness of kids and teachers when writing and executing Logo procedures on a lot of Texas Instruments TI-99 Home Computers spread along the building. The Logo software then available had still certain drawbacks: the turtle could not draw too much as it "run out of ink" and decimal numbers were not accepted. At the same time it had wonderful colored "sprites" and many people who were expecting to run Logo in a personal computer adhered to it promptly.
Immediately, I agreed with the Texas Instrument Argentine branch to prepare a Spanish Logo version for their TI-99 Home Computer. Soon the Spanish Logo became available in Argentina and neighboring countries, particularly in Uruguay. At that moment, I considered it essential to have Logo's ideas printed in Spanish; so, I set up Ediciones Galápago, which published in 1981 the translation of Mindstorms by Seymour Papert, under the title Desafío a la mente. Computadoras y educación. Ediciones Galápago also translated and published The Second Self -El Segundo Yo- by Sherry Turkle in 1984, The Society of Mind -La sociedad de la mente. La inteligencia humana a la luz de la inteligencia artificial- by Marvin Minsky in 1986, The Media Lab -El laboratorio de medios. Inventando el futuro en MIT- by Stewart Brand in 1988.
In 1982, I wrote Alas para la mente. Logo: un lenguaje de computadoras y un estilo de pensar -the corresponding title in English would be Wings for the Mind. Logo: a Computer Language and a Style of Thinking- which has been extensively used in Spanish speaking countries. As an example of the spirit of the book, I include a dialogue among children that simulate "walking" on the computer screen, showing their involvement with the situation, the enrichment of their original idea while advancing in the project and their feelings of achievement, all key factors in a genuine learning process (Annex 1). Alas para la mente was translated into French: Logo, Des ailes pour l'esprit, Cedic/Fernand Nathan, 1983, and into Italian: Logo, Ali per la mente: il linguaggio di programmazione ideato per l'educazione e il gioco creativo, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore S.p.a., Milano, 1984.
Counting with the availability of Desafío a la mente by Papert, and my own book Alas para la mente, together with the fact that personal computer were becoming popular in Argentina, I organized a great number of workshops, courses and seminars for teachers all over the country. Three enthusiastic assistants helped me at that time: Teresa Carabelli, Mercedes Torino and Paula Bontá -presently Director of Design at LCSI in Quebec. My involvement with Logo ideas led me to frequently publish articles on national and local newspapers, and attend interviews for well known local magazines and TV programs, trying to help spread the Logo spirit. Teachers and professionals from the educational field showed great enthusiasm and eagerness to participate in the new digital world. Most of what has been done with Logo in Argentina grew out from the interest, investment and dedication of small groups of persons. They were frequently headmasters and teachers often accompanied by parents from family school associations.
There was one school in particular, the Instituto Bayard (Bayard Institute), that led the way. With the support of the headmaster and owner of the school, Annelise Henriksen de De Forteza, I could train all her teachers and, soon, all the kids from the school started to develop Logo projects. The Instituto Bayard became a Logo "lighthouse" for many educators who were looking for positive changes in learning.
In 1982, a group of people inspired by the new winds brought by Logo to Argentina decided to join efforts and created the Asociación Amigos de Logo (Friends of Logo Association). This was a non-profit organization which main goal was to plant the seeds and promote the growth of Logo ideas. Asociación Amigos de Logo grew thanks to the effort and hard work of its members. We rarely got any support from outside. The first big step was the organization of the Primer Congreso Internacional Logo. Las Computadoras en la Educación y la Cultura -First International Logo Congress. Computers in Education and Culture- which was held on September 16/18, 1983, at the premises of the Instituto Bayard in Buenos Aires. (Annex 2).
None of us, not even the most optimistic, would have imagined the success and the response it would achieve. One thousand participants attended from Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, U.S.A., France and Spain, and it was sponsored by the I.B.I. Intergovernmental Bureau for Informatics (Rome), the UNESCO (Paris), Subsecretaría de Informática, Ministerio de Educación, Secretaría de Cultura, and Secretaría de Educación de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. There is something I would like to emphasize about this event: it was not a mere cluster of magistral presentations, but a real exchange of experiences and ideas. It is worth noticing the sincerity of several lecturers who, understanding that the Logo modality was in full process of evolution, did not hesitate, when answering the requests of the attendants, to say "We haven't thought about that yet", or "It had not occurred to us". Many children also participated actively in the meeting showing their own Logo microworlds, adding fresh and spontaneous remarks that promoted deep thoughts in the adults. "This meeting has been an extraordinary blend of a seminar together with a weekend party" said Julián Marcelo, who represented the I.B.I., at the closing ceremony.
Unfortunately, who should be our key speaker, Seymour Papert could not attend. Robert Mohl from MIT was highly demonstrative of the latest progress of Logo at worldwide level. The Primer Congreso Internacional Logo. Las Computadoras en la Educación y la Cultura 1983 of Buenos Aires strengthened the situation of Logo, not only in Argentina, but also in all Latin American. Many of the attendants of the Buenos Aires participated later at the Logo-84/85/86 Conferences at MIT.
New Logo versions and new personal computer models became available in Argentina like LCSI Apple Logo and LCSI IBM Logo. Texas Instrument Argentina, taking into account the success of its Spanish Logo version for TI-99, asked Harvard Associates of Boston and my team to develop a Spanish Logo software for its TI-PC model. We also prepared, in 1986, the Spanish Logo vocabulary and documentation for a MSX computer -assembled by Telématica S.A. in Argentina- following the MSX-Logo developed by LCSI in Canada. This computer became quite popular and was used by lots of schools. Lately, LCSI commissioned us a translation and adaptation into Spanish of its LogoWriter software.
During 1984 and 1985, I worked in the development of 3D-Logo and published the book Ideas y formas:. Explorando el espacio con Logo (Ideas and Forms. Learning to Build in 3-D Space with Logo). It deals with the virtual construction of three-dimensional objects following the powerful and elegant Logo intrinsic geometrical approach: the shape of any object can be described by defining the necessary movements of a turtle to trace its edges. Given an initial position of the turtle -location and orientation-, with regards to a viewpoint in front of the screen, 3D-Logo renders the corresponding image. This book was translated into French, Logo dans l'espace, ACT-Informatique, Cedic/Nathan, Paris, 1986, and into Italian, Idee et Forme. Explorando lo spazio con il Logo, Edizione Sisco Sistemi Cognitivi, Roma, 1987. The construction of 3D-shapes captured the imagination of many children and adolescents, to the point that it was quite natural to see all kinds of 3D-objects on the computer screens of many schools.
I also carried out a research on the geometrical generation of polyhedra using intrinsic geometry implementing my 3D-procedures in ObjectLogo -Paradigm Software Inc.- for the Apple Macintosh. Results, including the determination of the number and the structure of all possible different paths of traveling along all the faces of a regular polyhedron without passing more than once by the same face, were published in my paper Regular Polyhedra: Random Generation, Hamiltonian Paths and Single Chain Nets (Annex 3).
In 1988, I wrote Computadoras ¿creatividad o automatismo? Reflexiones sobre tecnologia (Computers, Creativity or Automatism? Thoughts on Technology). It brought together a collection of articles and conferences on Logo, stressing the premise that only a wise use of new information technologies can help us to become freer and more creative persons. The book also included an analysis of the ideas of Karl Popper and Seymour Papert (Annex 4).
Logo grew in Argentina through groups of people who believed in Logo more as a philosophy than a mere computer language. I can recount on hundred of wonderful and extraordinarily rewarding small experiences all over the country. I can even give the names of Logo kids who clearly realized about the meaning and importance of computers and followed their careers at MIT, or some that have successfully found a place in the information society, but, unfortunately, I can not recount on valid experiences supported by local or national governments. Most official projects on the field have dealt with the idea of using doubtful "educational software" and trusted on the computer companies for support and training. The present Logo situation is more or less the same as it was years ago. There are many schools that permanently seek and work hard to find better ways to understand Logo and make wonderful use of it; others, as in God's flock, scarcely realize about the philosophy underneath Logo. One school, among the first ones, is the Colegio Las Cumbres in Buenos Aires. There, Mónica B. Coni -in charge of staff development under the slogan Digital Learning– is continuously training teachers and giving innovative cues for imaginative Logo applications.
I want to end with a comment about one of the essential natures of Logo, not very clearly understood in educational areas. Logo was enthusiastically received in Argentina as a big innovation but -as it has also happened in other countries- the force and dynamics of the beginnings decayed with the years. I believe this circumstance can be explained by different reasons. The main reason had to do with a way to look on Logo just as a mere technological auxiliary tool to be applied principally to what has been done up to the present. That vision overlooked or denied the delicate Logo approach that implies selfsconscience -to be oneself-, to be in control -to be the owner of oneself or to be oneself- and selfdecision -to act from oneself or by oneself-. These human attitudes require "personal reflection" and demand "thinking about thinking", but -unfortunately- these traits are not the ones that prevail in influential groups and are simply not encouraged enough. We are in a situation in which some of the Logo approach virtues are, at the same time, a barrier to overcome as the society in general does not comply with them. Better Logo versions and explanations of its meaning, the ascending power and spreading of persons that had the experience and pleasure of thinking using Logo in their childhood, the evolution of society to better human life conditions, will gradually produce the necessary changes for its due appreciation and success.
Alas para la mente. Logo: un lenguaje de computadoras y un estilo de pensar, by Horacio C. Reggini, Ediciones Galápago, Buenos Aires, 1982. Winds for the mind. Logo: a computer language and a style of thinking.
All the above sentences contain the ideas that animate the book but I want to avoid the word "computer". I have used it many times in articles and conferences. Moreover, and this is what really counts, that term and the other one "computation" so often used, immediately insinuate complex and esoteric matters. I believe it should not be that way. In the past, persons who professed esoteric doctrines wanted their knowledge to be shared only by a few ones. This situation must not be repeated nowadays because of cultural as well as social reasons. Scientific progress brings us to the world of computers. To restrict or to propagate the knowledge of science and technology are two alternative paths which are up to us. Alas para la mente (Wings for the mind) chooses the second one: it aims to demystify the allegedly mysterious and complicated computer and make it accessible and simple to everybody. These and other beliefs have also influenced the book so that it continually analyzes educational issues and often refers to children with respect and love.
Reflection, critical thinking and dialogue are essential aims in education. Young people live interested in real problems, and they want to fly up to them. But sometimes their wings are not powerful enough, like those of Icarus who, in escaping from imprisonment, fell into the sea when the wax of his wings melted as he flew near the Sun. This book intends to provide real and effective "wings" to thinking. The "wings" this book dreams of are meant to be powerful and amiable ones, capable of taking us where we choose to go: far away in the analysis of external phenomena or deep inside ourselves in the study of our own way of thinking.
The book describes and uses the wonderful Logo language created by Seymour Papert. Logo or Logo-like languages will be used in all future computers. Logo is powerful and natural tool for procedural description. It can be understood by everybody and it is an excellent vehicle for exploring multiple phenomena. A lot of achievements in the past, carried out times where the present science and technology did not exist, proved the effectiveness and power of imagination. For taking real advantage from a computer it is necessary to follow the intuitive path as well as the logic-mathematical one. The Logo language eliminates the severe barriers that prevent most people from using computers creatively on the basis of essential knowledge and resources, following the sage proverb that says that nothing must be done with many elements if it can be done with a few.
The book is mainly related to the ideas by Papert in Mindstorms. I often refer to children in the way I am going to do immediately. But, I want to make it clear that the same concepts and points of view also apply, with more similitude than we may imagine to adults. What happens is that we adults believe we know everything and so we do not want to learn anymore. I wish we adults were more like children so as to enjoy more the beauties of life, to laugh or sing and to listen without mistrust or prejudice. Moreover, I firmly believe that a more just and worthy society will be built by children tomorrow on condition that adults today generously provide them with the possibility of achieving an authentically better education.
– The computer becomes an outstanding learning tool.
– The computer acts a way of making "learning mathematics" natural an enjoyable.
– The process of learning how to think and the understanding of the way they think, allow children to grow up intellectually.
– Instinctively, almost without help, children develop inductive and deductive reasoning.
– Since children find their learning meaningful, they get interested and so learning goes on naturally.
– Children learn to see numbers from a different point of view: since numbers begin to be comprehensible, they start to be appropriable; since numbers are useful to carry out their purpose, they become personally meaningful and even, necessary. Number are alien objects no more.
– A very special kind of affective relation is quickly established between person and computer which resembles more a dialogue of friends than a prepared lesson. In this way learning becomes an irresistible temptation to everybody, and so we can see groups immediately interacting and trading ideas, as soon as they face the computer.
– Reality becomes a representable object. They can divide it into approachable and comprehensible parts and so they begin to understand it, and what is more: they feel prepared to interact with a new and friendly world.
– The computer is personally meaningful to the user.
– Both body syntonic and ego syntonic learning develop.
– Children are allowed to see what they think. They see their thoughts come to life on the screen.
– The aesthetic dimension is continually placed in the forefront.
– Self-conscience means to be in oneself, to assert oneself.
– Self-control means to be the owner of oneself or to be oneself.
– Self-decision means to act from oneself or by oneself.
The book intends to be understood by children, adolescents and adults. It also wants to be useful to specialists, often used to considering computers from other points of view. I do hope that someone will venture and enjoy the intellectual flight proposed by this book.
Five scenes with dialogues between children are inserted in the book Alas para la Mente. Logo: un lenguaje de computadoras y un estilo de pensar, which the author uses either to give examples of the ideas stated in previous chapters or just to explain a new subject. The content of these dialogues, besides its reference to formal aspects of Logo language, reveals, as is the intention of the whole book, the characteristics of a genuine learning process.
What follows is a translation from Spanish into English of Chapter 26, entitled Fifth Scene. It is a short story of a group of children using a computer. The conversation furthers the general habit of relating mathematics to personal knowledge. Observe how Claire looks at her feet; …see how all are involved with the situation; …the variable RHYTHM (the use of a symbol to name an undefined value) is presented as a means of "walking faster or slower". The group works out different alternatives, enriching the original idea and making the first model more complete. The scene ends with everybody happily looking at what is happening on the screen, "something" that they, by themselves, planned and achieved with self-decision.
– Logo is all yours, so long as you give us an explanation about what you're thinking.
– My idea is to make the right foot and the left foot appear on the screen and tell them to walk upwards without leaving footprints.
– Of course you've thought of an agent for each foot. Each one will have to "carry" different "shapes", which will be very much like real feet.
To begin, Ximena writes MAKESHAPE 11, and a grid of 16 x 16 little squares appears on the screen. Touching keys with signals she makes some squares become black and so a form similar to the left foot is obtained.
When she writes MAKESHAPE 12, another grid, completely clean, appears on the screen; she touches the "drawing keys" once more and makes a figure representing the right foot. Everybody takes part in the drawing. Claire takes her shoes off to look at her feet and to compare them with those Ximena is drawing on the screen.
– I use the order TELL to communicate with each agent. It's like telling them to "wake up" or to "listen" to me. I order agent 1 to carry SHAPE 11 and agent 2, SHAPE 12, and I place them near the center of the screen. When I need to tell the same thing to both agents 1 and 2, I address to PAIR, which is the "list" formed by their numbers. So, I tell them both to dye yellow and to point upwards.
Claire keeps her breath when Ximena writes WALK, and bursts into enthusiastic shouts when the feet begin to WALK on the screen. Peter claps and Ximena seems moved.
Jules, who leads the group, suggests that they make the feet walk more or less quickly, for which it is necessary to change WALK into a "procedure with an input".
– Well, I'm leaving now. I'm so pleased for all we've done today.
First International Logo Congress: Computers in Education and Culture. 1983.
Opening speech (by the President of the Congress, Horacio C. Reggini, September 16, 1983, Buenos Aires, Argentina).
In behalf of the Asociación Amigos de Logo, I welcome you to this Congress. Many people, from neighbor countries and from other ones of the world have come to be with us in this occasion, as well as numerous delegations and visitors from other cities of our country.
Some time ago, when we were seeking a place to hold the Congress, we regarded theaters, auditoriums and other places often used. But we wanted a different congress. We fancied about trees, and plants, and flowers. We used to have our Association meetings in the director office, very close to this place. And, as it often happens, the nearest, most loved and familiar things are those that we often disregard, those which we do not notice. Only sometimes, when they are missing, we take them into account. One day we noticed this patio, the patio of a school, which has a tree, plants and flowers and where there is always joy, play and love for life. This patio thus became a symbol for this Congress. I hope its spirit is among us these days.
We are here because we have some points of coincidence. To some, these coincidence are strictly scientific: the study and the deeper knowledge of a new kind of computing, Logo, which may imply a different use of computers in many fields, professional as well as commercial and industrial. For others, the Logo mode is intimately aimed to open new ways in education. So, Logo acquires social and cultural characteristics that make a mere technological innovation become a potential factor of authentic progress.
We are confident that the lectures, the papers, the children works and the fruitful exchange of ideas will be valuable contributions to the Logo International Community that is growing day after day. This congress is a challenge to all of us and undoubtedly will help achieve a more convenient use of computers and an improvement in education.
"The purpose of Logo is to contribute to the complete development of human being, which is the goal of all authentic education. Through Logo, computers can improve the conditions for such learning, while still respecting the learners linguistic and cultural identity. I will discussed these ideas and how Logo is sometimes erroneously introduced in schools as a technique; just as another computer language, instead of a philosophy with implications for the very structure of the educational system.
From a very early age the child draws from the material around him to develop coherent theories about the world; "naive theories" through which she explains and understands the real world. The knowledge she acquires is limited by the limitations of her environment. She lacks the material to turn some concepts into concrete ideas.
The computer -a new Aladdin's lamp, with its capacity to become any object through a kind of metamorphosis- provides the child with those models she does not find in the real world. Because the machine can turn formal thinking into concrete thinking, computers can help the child learn this type of knowledge more quickly, and so stimulate her intellectual development.
What usually happens, however, is that once the child enters school her previous theories about the world clash with the information supplied by her teachers. The child doesn't understand why her theories are incorrect or incomplete, nor why they are discarded. Students learn lessons by rote without understanding what they are saying. Latter, they reject what they have been forced to learn. In addition, the system of reward and punishment produces and intellectual paralysis in the learner, who does not dare to hold views different from those of her teacher for fear of committing a mistake and receiving a low mark.
1. The child reflects on what she knows and expresses it in a coherent, and orderly way so that she may be understood and also be able to defend her ideas. Thus, she will gain self-confidence and an awareness of the power of her ideas.
2. The child participates in a well-developed, qualitative approach to knowledge.
3. The child is not afraid of making mistakes -it is not important whether what one does is right or wrong, but whether mistakes can be corrected and improved.
4. The child is encouraged to be creative and allowed to personally appreciate the world. Each person interprets things from her own viewpoint.
5. The child is offered the opportunity of being like an adult in relation to her intellectual product.
Putting such an educational system into practice is extremely difficult in ordinary classes. And in this sense, computers -provided with a suitable language-, can help.
A Logo procedure -teaching the machine how to do something- is the formalization of a piece of knowledge. This formalization can be tested, executed and verified. For the computer, a procedure is a sequence of intelligible and executable phrases. For the computer user, the procedure is the expression of the understanding of a concept. As that understanding can change, a procedure is also subject to change, improvement and permanent revision. In Logo environments, the students discusses their work with their teachers and classmates. This verbalization is vitally important. For the student, building a procedure is not only naming a series of instructions: it is an initial passage into abstractions and the subsequent concrete manipulation of an idea. With Logo, students learn to analyze problems, develop abstractions, formalize solutions to problems, and break down the solutions into a series of solutions to sub-problems.
Students also acquire the habit of verifying general solutions in particular cases: of considering errors not as disasters, but as temporary obstacles which must be overcome; and of developing constructive self-criticism. Frequently, success in learning largely depends not only in intellectual factors, but also an emotional ones. Whether a child likes an area of study depends on her ability or inability to assimilate this special type of knowledge into her own set of models. These intellectual models, different for each person, are acquired in the course of a lifetime. It is easy to learn what one likes or understands, but hard to learn what is unpleasant or incomprehensible. What a person learns depends on the models available to him.
Because the computer is capable of adopting innumerable forms and of supplying widely varying models to suit individual interests, it helps to overcome such barriers to learning. Also with the computer, knowledge acquires a recognizable personal purpose: The child can do things with it. The steps of learning are inverted; the computer allows students to come into contact with the practical uses of knowledge, before coming into contact with its formal enunciation.
Education, when properly understood, must always try to help the child to use her freedom in the most authentic way, a responsible freedom. From an early age the child must progressively exercise her right to choose -under her parents and teachers help- from among the different options offered to her, and to assume the responsibility for and the consequences for her actions, celebrating her accomplishments and correcting her errors. It is this sense of freedom that Logo environments hope to achieve. The child feels free in the formulation of her work, in the steps she will follow to reach her goal and according to her own rhythm: she freely organizes her microworld, but she assumes responsibility for what happens within it.
Working with Logo, children may form a mental image and then design ways to create their image. Or a child may start working with no definite goal, and she discovers something new with each step she takes. Her activity resembles scientific research and artistic creation, as the artist often looks in amazement at the result of her own work. Thus, learning becomes a personal adventure. Also with Logo, children conquer a world which they create and own, and into which they project not only intellectual ideas, but also their own desires. They discover the pleasure of creation without external demands nor absolute truths. Freedom and creativity are not suppressed by fear of punishment. Mistakes are not bad and it is possible to learn from them. Thus, freedom is used with responsibility.
In Greek philosophy, the teacher is the one who guides, who helps the spirit to discover essential truths. The teacher does not show the truths but instead encourages the learner to discover them. Same concept applies to Logo".
This book aims to bridge the gap between the traditional ways of describing and representing three-dimensional objects, and those ways offered by modern computers to accomplish that objective. Examples are given and projects are developed to stimulate interest and encourage the exploration of the structure and composition of geometrical shapes. By teaching the computer to produce three-dimensional objects, the reader may achieve greater understanding and comprehension of the elegance and complexity of shapes in space. A capacity to appreciate and understand the beauty of everyday life is important not only us a source of aesthetic pleasure, but also as a medium of knowledge. To know is to delve into things to discover their meaning. The study of shapes is one of the ways of unraveling mysterious natural designs and designing new ones.
The book deals with the creation and manipulation of spatial figures with Logo. The computer is not considered an object of study in itself or used to teach a specific problem or to make a step by step demonstration of a given exercise; instead, it is a tool or chisel that allows people to behave like experts in a field in which they are not, making it possible for them to play creatively with the chosen subjects. The computer is used here as a medium for human expression, intellectual or artistic, offering the user the chance to experience the emotion and joy of the creative act.
The knowledge required to use the Logo language is minimal: only the capacity to define new words or procedures. The commands that make possible the construction of three-dimensional figures are simple and are shown gradually.
The Logo implementation of primitive commands to enable us to use the turtle in space is based on the idea of organizing a microcosm in which the knowledge and the design of spatial objects could become part of natural and egosyntonic process. Through these commands it is possible to draw easily a three-dimensional object upon the computer screen. The image is generated by the movements of the turtle in the space; the representation of the image in the plane of the screen -through a central conic perspective- is performed automatically by the system.
Corporal syntonicity is one of the powerful ideas that makes possible the drawing or graphics with the Logo turtle. This idea of corporal syntonicity allows us to use corporal knowledge to describe any object. To draw a spatial object it is not necessary to know the laws of representation, only the movements that should be made to describe it. In other words, the description of a succession of movements results in a drawing on the screen.
Moreover, the incorporation of a spatial dimension in the Logo microcosm implies an important qualitative jump in the conception of the turtle as "an-object-to-think-with", as it movements, not only limited to displacements and rotations on a plane surface, reach a more realistic approximation to true corporal movements.
There are many similarities between the methods of technological production, scientific research and artistic creation: fundamentally, all consist of creating order from chaos. The production of a work of art and the concretion of any scientific project requires intense dedication. Both are highly complex tasks demanding resourcefulness, planning, knowledge and debugging. Michelangelo studied anatomy at night, and the result of those studies can be seen in the perfectly molded lines of his Moses or his David. In the same way, professionals, researchers, and artists, spend much of their lives on tests, explorations and studies. The contents of this book signal a road; the rest is in the hands of those who may want to go along it fully.
Note by Margaret Grammer, published in magazine Argentine News, ps. 21-23, Buenos Aires, December 20, 1985.
For those who know Logo, the computer language, the image of a Logo environment is of children playing with designs on a computer intersecting spirals, squares, or more complicated plane drawings. But for those who know Horacio Reggini, the image is different. Some of Reggini's "Logo Kids" are architects and engineers and the designs they play with are skyscrapers of Buenos Aires: past, present and future. Indeed, in Reggini's hands, Logo has escaped the two-dimensional plane and moved into space. Three-dimensional Logo may change the way we use computers and, with time, it may even change our way of life.
Logo as a computer language has been understood as a tool for education. Easy to learn, understand, and use, Logo is taught in schools around the world. But Logo, says Reggini, is not just for kids. "With Logo, you can tackle any kind of problem," he told Argentine News recently. "Anything you can do with another computer language, you can do with Logo…" The difference, says Reggini, is that with Logo it's better. "It's easier and more natural." What makes it so attractive for educators and for children is that from the very beginning, Logo user can create procedures that are interesting and satisfying.
"Reggini's first book on Logo, Wings for the Mind (Alas para la mente, 1982) presented the Logo system in Spanish for the first time. Translated into French and Italian, Wings for the Mind is a step-by-step introduction that shows the fundamentals of Logo. With it, Argentine children use Logo for computers graphics, driving a tiny, triangular "turtle" around a computer screen, and writing procedures for increasingly complex geometrical designs. When Reggini introduced several new procedures, building on the existing software, those designs could become three-dimensional and, especially important, be moved in space.
His book published in September 1985, provides the framework for three-dimensional Logo. In it, Reggini uses his own designs as examples. He shows buildings from above and below, and from different viewpoints around it. He draws spectacles and watches (Reggini's own, he says), chairs and even his bicycle in three-dimensional Logo. Reggini's first models were simple. He was testing the idea. But it wasn't so long before he and his team were writing data for the Catalinas complex -a set of buildings on the Buenos Aires waterfront that includes the Sheraton Hotel, the IBM building, and the UIA building. Reggini's office on the Leandro N. Alem Av. overlooks the complex, and he and his engineering partner, Hilario Fernández Long, originally designed the structures for several of the buildings. In those days, says Reggini, a perspective drawing could take days, at least, to complete. His Logo perspective took just a few minutes.
For Reggini, the applications for three-dimensional Logo go beyond engineering or architecture. "You can apply three-dimensional geometrical Logo to any design of any kind… The computer becomes a tool, he says -the means to an end, and not the end in itself. The user must be more interested in the idea he or she wants to develop than in the machine or the computer language… I feel that with computers, you can also experience the joys of being, of doing, of realizing that you are thinking. And you are interacting with your thoughts and putting form to them".
In addition, says Reggini, those using computers could begin to see themselves as artist or artisans: "in the same way that the artist or the artisan, starting from inspiration, elaborates his idea both in his mind and in the material until obtaining the final shape, so (three-dimensional Logo) describes a similar process in which the computer serves a tool and Logo as a mean of expression." The artisan, working with tools, creates objects by hand for daily use, he explains. The tool used are not complicated, nor do they required special knowledge to use, except for the skills, judgment, and aesthetics of the artisan. "The artisan may change his mind, because of the work in progress… the material itself may guide his hand, his mind." Reggini sees Logo as just such an uncomplicated tool, easily mastered, that offers a new means of expression to the "artisans" of our day.
Creación y representación de formas tridimensionales. Creation and Representation of Three-Dimensional Shapes.
An Inaugural Lecture by Horacio C. Reggini delivered at the Academia Nacional de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales (Argentine Academy of Mathematics, Physics and Natural Sciences) on November 27, 1987. Anales, Tomo XL, 1988.
The first part of the presentation deals with the geometrical description and computer generation of three-dimensional shapes. The importance of intrinsic geometry and modular techniques is evident in the construction of a set of basic designs: diverse and intricate forms can be created from simple building blocks, their complexity arising from the combination and interaction of a large number of small elements and processes. Using a three-dimensional Logo system developed by the author, several architectural examples are reproduced and displayed from various viewpoints. The most important aspect of three-dimensional Logo is its use as a rigorous and intuitive language for describing and generating objects. The same system may be applied to robot guidance. Thus computers become a versatile means of expression, providing computer users with an opportunity to feel the emotion and joy of the creative act.
The second part of the presentation deals with the two-dimensional representation of three-dimensional shapes. It has been noticed that classical rules of perspective -which govern orthodox drawings and photographic images- are not always satisfactory. Artists have dealt with this problem in different ways. In this presentation, a perspective system based upon curved projection rays is introduced. This new system reduces certain distortions and rigidities observed by some people in classical perspective. The curvature of the rays is controlled by an image index, which can be selected at will by the user in another three-dimensional Logo system also developed by the author. Examples of images generated with different indexes are shown. The possibility of adding such an option to new visual devices, such as television, is raised, whereby the users can choose among alternatives according to taste. This opportunity to select the proper index would be possible in the near future thanks to modern techniques of computerized virtual reality and digital image processing. It is concluded that these ideas are rooted in the belief that it is essential to give people adequate resources for thinking and acting freely.
Paper by Horacio C. Reggini, Monografía nº 6, Academia Nacional de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales, Buenos Aires, 1991.
Computer simulations are carried out using the Logo language in relation with the number of trials necessary to create each regular polyhedron by a random method. Statistical results (distributions, averages and standard deviations) are calculated and analyzed, relating obtained values to face paths and plane nets of each polyhedron.
All the possible different paths of traveling along all the faces of a regular polyhedron, given two initial faces, without passing more than once by the same face -called "Hamiltonian face paths"- are determined: 2 for the tetrahedron, 10 for the cube, 6 for the octahedron, 1264 for the dodecahedron and 54 for the icosahedron. The number of paths that arrive at a neighbour face of the departure face are respectively: 2, 8, 4, 512 and 20. The number of paths that arrive at the opposite face to the departure are: none, 2, 2, 144 and 2.
If it is possible to travel around without re-entering a face, this means that the polyhedron can be cut along its edges so as to make it into a single chain of polygons. Thus, Hamiltonian paths are associated with corresponding single chain plane nets that by folding along common edges generate the regular polyhedra. It is deduced that the total numbers of the different single chain nets are: 2 for the tetrahedron, 8 for the cube, 5 for the octahedron, 680 for the dodecahedron and 36 for the icosahedron. If mirror-image nets are not counted the corresponding numbers become: 1, 4, 3, 340 and 18 respectively. Drawings of the nets are included.
Finally, the problem of the face circuits is related to the dual problem of the vertex circuits (1, 1, 3, 2 and 33 different routes for each regular polyhedron, or 1, 1, 2, 1 and 17, if mirror-image circuits are not counted) studied by Hamilton a century ago. Divisions of the polyhedra into two segments by respective vertex are shown.
1. Exploring Three-Dimensional Space with Logo, Logo-85 Conference, Plenary Session IV, M.I.T., Cambridge, MA, July 1985.
2. Explorando formas espaciales con Logo, Summa, Architecture Argentine Journal, Nos. 221-222, ene.-feb. 1986, Buenos Aires.
3. Generation of space shapes with a computer, The Argentine Engineering Institution Bulletin, 370, dic. 1986, Buenos Aires.
4. Exploring 3-dimensional space with Logo, Micromath, Basil Blackwell Ltd., Vol. 2, N° 1, Spring 1986, London.
5. Towards an Artisanal Use of Computers. Their application to the design and study of three-dimensional forms, Logo-86 Proceedings of The Third International Logo Conference, M.I.T., Cambridge, MA, July 1986.
6. Exploring 3-Dimensional Space with Logo, Logo Memo 102, The Media Lab, M.I.T., Cambridge, MA, July 1986.
7. 3-Dimensional Logo Commands and Procedures, Logo Memo 103, The Media Lab, M.I.T., Cambridge, MA, July 1986.
8. Projects with 3-Dimensional Logo, Logo Memo 104, The Media Lab, M.I.T., Cambridge, MA, July 1986.
9. Geometría computacional: generación al azar de poliedros, caminos hamiltonianos y redes unifilares, Anales de las Conferencias del II Encuentro Hispanoamericano de Historia de las Ciencias, Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales de España y Academia Nacional de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales de la República Argentina, Buenos Aires, 10/16 de septiembre de 1990.
10. Three-dimensional Logo, Journal of the International Council for Computers in Education, Special Interested Group for Logo-Users Educators, April 1990, Vol. 8, No. 8.
11. Tree graph representation of Hamiltonian paths, Computers & Mathematics, vol. 27, n. 5, ps. 101-114, Pergamon, Elsevier Science Ltd., Oxford, 1994. Paths along faces of a polyhedron can be assimilated to paths along the branches of a tree graph. This paper shows the "pruned" trees corresponding to all Hamiltonian paths of regular polyhedra.
Computadoras: ¿creatividad o automatismo?, by Horacio C. Reggini, Ediciones Galápago, Buenos Aires, 1988. Computers: Creativity or Automatism?
More than three decades ago I first had the chance to make contact with the machine that, without fear of overstating, can be called the discovery of this century: the computer. The first computers, at that time, were not only extremely expensive but almost inaccessible. A few years later, I became close to the MAC Project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology which since the early '60s, has researched how technology can enhance human beings intellectually and creatively. "MAC" comes from "Machine Aided Cognition" which was the general goal of the project, and also from "Multiple Access Computer" which meant its operative mode. Since then, I have remained tied to computers as a consulting engineer, a professor and a researcher.
During this time, the initial surge of the new technology has not declined and enthusiasm remains high all over the world. Today, new discoveries, like fiber optics and parallelism techniques in new computer design allow us to foresee technological marvels that go beyond yesterday's fantasies. The future, wich once seemed so far away, becomes reality every day.
I have always believed that computers should be placed in people's hands as a means for growing, no matter what their activities are. But it was only in the '70s and -much more intensively- after 1980, with the invention of small personal computers, that informatics could escape from the narrow limits imposed by the setting of the laboratory or large organizations. Today, millions of people around the world have a fluent dialogue with their computers, which permits them to work, create and study independently and autonomously.
However, real interaction with computers is just beginning. Technological humanity has just stammered its first words and it is still too early for evaluations. What role will computers play in the next decades? We must search together for the answer. Those who succumb to "computer magic", that unthinking enchantment by the technological novelty, anticipate golden years when technology will provide us with thousands of material benefits.
On the other hand, those who reject, also unthinkingly, anything new, warn of the dangers of a coming "cybernetic slavery" that will end up turning us into robots and stripping us of our more genuine values. I believe that only a thorough understanding of their significance and an ample freedom of application will allow us to find new and more human uses for computers, so their enormous technological potential does not turn us into mere passive receivers of information.
The road divides and we must choose: creativity or automatism? This book responds to the first premise as I am convinced it is scientists' responsibility to contribute to the most harmonious introduction of the new technologies into society. I also believe that the more we learn about technology, the deeper we can perceive the essence of our humanity. The articles, lectures, presentations and interviews, etc., that comprise this book have one common thesis: only a wise use of the new technological tools can make us more complete, creative and freer people. This thesis is applied to the different areas I have been interested for years: computers in general, computers in education, artificial intelligence, the design and construction of forms in space, the psychology of learning, and the development of scientific knowledge. It is also the basic concept which gives unity to the book and to the variety of areas dealt with. I have revised and made minor changes in some of the chapters to avoid unnecessary repetition and to make the marginal superpositions among them more acceptable; although, in some cases, I have allowed some repetitions so that each chapter may stand independently.
I believe the ideas concerning computers are new and important and of vital significance for the process of human evolution. That is why, more than ever before, a sensible integration of the new technology is necessary at every level, while avoiding the fragmentation of culture and without leading towards undesirable institutions or life styles. In my contribution to all this, I have chosen two paths: on one hand, to influence education, trying to make of computers tools to enable more creative, less dogmatic personal growth; on the other hand, to investigate, develop and diffuse through mass media, proper methods and means to apply computers in various areas of daily life.
These pages express my thoughts as well as many of the alternatives that mark out the road yet to be traveled.
Shall we advocate creativity or automatism? It would be an erroneous and artificial classification to imply that the two words are mutually exclusive. Instead, I intend to indicate two possible alternatives as well as two complementary aptitudes. We tend to use the word creativity to refer to the production of artistic or new ideas, and to use automatism to mean a sequence of actions produced so mechanically that they can be carried out without interfering with any other activity. I believe that both processes are vital and necessary. In that sense, the title of this book could have been creativity and automatism. Automatism as a result of previously acquired action scripts -which required creativity when first used- is beneficial, as it sets free other parts of the mind. Automatism in the use of computers must not be neglected, but it will be insufficient if it is not combined with sparks of creativity which allow us to change or modify our routines, giving birth to previously unknown goals or imagining new destinies.
"I must not search for my dignity in space, but in the government of my thoughts… through my thoughts I embrace the world", Blaise Pascal wrote more than three centuries ago. Even then, Pascal considered intelligence as the only way to freedom, and education as the only way to intelligence. But, like any human gesture, education and learning theories suffer the influence of the cultural and philosophical ideas of the age. Today, perhaps more than ever before, education holds a privileged position but… what sort of education?
In the light of new ideas, influential thinkers of our century, coming from different currents of thought, coincide in characterizing learning as a process of acquisition and practice of new methodologies, skills or aptitudes necessary to face new situations. They formulate a new emergent paradigm in education based on lack of dogmatism, respect for individual freedom and critical thinking.
Among those who stand out for their contributions to the reform of educational theories, are Karl Popper and Seymour Papert. The former, born July 28, 1902, in Austria, is considered one of the most important philosophers of science, whose ideas about methodological fallibility, conjectures and refutations, and the evolutionary theory of knowledge, among others, constitute a valuable contribution to universal thinking. The latter, born February 29, 1928, in South Africa, is a mathematician and epistemologist widely known, for over a decade, for his research and development into the use of computers in the classroom. His activities, following Piaget's ideas, his contributions to artificial intelligence and the creation and worldwide distribution of the Logo computer modality have earned him a privileged position among modern educational reformers.
Both have merited authoritative articles published previously by this medium (1,2); and some time ago, I also referred to the educational approach of Logo modality (3,4). On this occasion, however, I attempt to point out some similarities and coincidences between Papert's ideas, embodied in his unique computation system, and Popper's ideas regarding education implicit in his extensive philosophical work.
For a long time it was believed that education is essentially a transmission of knowledge from teacher to student in which knowledge is received from the outside; we accept it as long as it can be adequately justified and we increase it through the inductive method, beginning with individual cases to arrive at a universal rule. This was the position held by such outstanding philosophers as Locke or Hume. However, already in this century, Karl Popper, among other authors, was concerned in his philosophical research with the growth of knowledge, both in the individual and society, and criticized the theories that considered the child as a blank page and the mind as little more than a file of impressions gathered by the senses. Refuting one by one the logical foundations of that position, Popper established the hypothesis that knowledge is only increased by means of conjectures and refutations, and learning only takes place through trial and error, where this method becomes a source of knowledge: "To learn how not to commit errors, we must learn from our errors" (5).
For Popper, "the learning process consists mainly in correcting expectations that are not satisfied" (6) and these expectations are just what generate the process of trial and error.
In "Mindstorms", Seymour Papert describes the fundamental ideas of his educational philosophy. Much of his work is devoted to evaluating the role of error, which is not considered an imperfection that must be eliminated but a functional element that participates in the process of achieving an objective. He asserts: "Many children are held back in their learning because they have a model of learning in which you have either 'got it' or 'got it wrong'. But when you learn to program a computer you almost never get it right the first time. Learning to be a master programmer is learning to become highly skilled at isolating and correcting 'bugs', the parts that keep the program from working. The question to ask about the program is not whether it is right or wrong, but if it is fixable. If this way of looking at intellectual products were generalized to how the larger culture thinks about knowledge and its acquisition, we all might be less intimidated by our fears of 'being wrong'" (7). Later he explains that much of the work with Logo is devoted to strategies of debugging, such as developing autonomous subprocedures so that errors can be easily isolated and corrected. The priceless by-product of learning these skills is a new attitude about errors. "Errors benefit us because they lead us to study what happened, to understand what was wrong, and, through understanding, to fix it" (8).
Learning through trial and error shapes a behaviour that works. The debugging process –search for and correction of errors– in Logo procedures plays, for Papert, a fundamental role in the understanding of any subject: "School teaches that errors are bad; the last thing one wants to do is to pore over them, dwell on them, or think about them. The debugging philosophy suggests an opposite attitude. Experience with computer programming leads children more effectively than any other activity to 'believe' in debugging" (9).
This concept of error as a tool for the growth of knowledge harmonizes with Popper's idea about the selection of ideas. Just as in the world of living organisms, evolution takes place through natural selection of the fittest, Popper believes that, in the world of ideas, theories evolve through trial, where incorrect theories are eliminated. This concept can also be applied to education. H. J. Perkinson writes: "Karl Popper has done more than destroy the transmission theory of education. He has also given a new theory of evolutionary epistemology, upon which it is possible to build a new theory of education, a Darwinian theory of education. This theory could perhaps be called learning from our mistakes. According to this theory, the learner is active, not passive, not a receptor of knowledge; a seeker of order, not needing motivation or control in order to learn. The learner learns from making mistakes" (10).
"The best learning takes place when the learner takes charge" (11), writes Papert. The Logo creator believes children are active builders of their own intellectual structures and "innately gifted learners", acquiring long before they go to school a vast quantity of knowledge by a process he calls Piagetian learning: "learning without curriculum… supporting children as they build their own intellectual structures with materials drawn from the surrounding culture. In this model, educational intervention means changing the culture, planting new constructive elements in it and eliminating noxious ones" (12). "Piagetian learning is typically deeply embedded in other activities. For example, the infant does not have periods set aside for 'learning talking'. This model of learning stands in opposition to dissociated learning, learning that takes place in relative separation from other kinds of activities, mental and physical." (13).
Papert uses the term constructionism in reference to two aspects of education. From the constructivist theories of psychology he adopts the thesis that considers learning as a reconstruction rather than a consequence of the transmission of knowledge. From educational experience, he draws the evidence that learning is particularly effective when it is immersed in an activity in which the student feels he is building something significant and meaningful (for example, an artistic piece, a machine that functions, a research project, or a computer program). In this case the student builds a meaningful entity instead of acquiring facts and data devoid of a context in which they can be immediately used and understood (14). Besides, Papert includes within constructionism social and affective aspects that go beyond mere cognition. The fact that the child is dedicated to building something, and the particular circumstance that he is doing something he feels and in which he believes, adds new dimensions to the learning process. He believes that certain learning takes place early and spontaneously, because the child as builder finds the materials with which to build. Others do not develop because of the relative poverty of the culture in those materials that would make the corresponding concepts simple, and concrete, and not because of their complexity or formality. Therefore, his insistence on giving children adequate access to learning environments or microworlds. "The educator must be anthropologist. The educator as anthropologist must work to understand which cultural materials are relevant to intellectual development", Papert says (15).
Popper defines the human being as an active seeker of knowledge so much so that he remembers his first years of school with the following words: "I will always be grateful to my first teacher, Emma Goldberger, who taught me how to read, write and the basic rules of arithmetic. These three subjects, I believe, are the only essential things that must be taught to a child; and some children still do not need to be taught anything at all so as to learn them. Everything else is a matter of atmosphere and continuous learning by thinking and reading" (16).
Logo, on the other hand, is a synonym of self-education: each person establishes his or her own goals, recognizes his or her mistakes, analyzes them and learns from them. Papert writes, with reference to the use of Logo: "…when a child learns to program, the process of learning is transformed. It becomes more active and self-directed. In particular, the knowledge is acquired for a recognizable personal purpose. The child does something with it. The new knowledge is a source of power and is experienced as such from the moment it begins to form in the child's mind" (17).
Karl Popper refers to this topic in a dialogue with John Eccles on the occasion of the preparation of their book "The Self and its Brain", when they spent time together in Villa Serbelloni, Bellagio, Italy. There, in lovely and stimulating surroundings, beside Como Lake, in the morning of September 20, 1974, he comments: "I think that it is terribly important that, throughout our whole life, we should avoid being mere passive receptors of information. There is a special danger in childhood: that our schools may treat children like the gondola kitten*. This was especially true when children had to sit in a confined way so as to reduce the possibility for the children to move, so they shouldn't disturb other children and, especially, the teacher. In other words, our children were once like gondola kittens. While it would not matter as much if people our age spent their time staring at television screens, I think it is undesirable for television or teaching machines to be used as a means of instruction such that children play a passive role: they just sit and learn. I don't deny that television has its good side if used sparingly, but a growing young person should be stimulated to face problems and then to try to solve these problems, and should be helped in solving these problems only if help is needed. He should not be indoctrinated, and should not be fed with answers when no questions have been asked: when problems don't come from within" (18).
* The most elegant and delightful example of the role of activity in visual learning is provided by the experiments of Held and Hein (19). Kittens from the same litter spend several hours a day in a contraption which allows one kitten fairly complete freedom to explore its environment actively, just as a normal kitten. The other is suspended passively in a gondola that, by a simple mechanical arrangement, is moved in all directions by the exploring kitten so that the gondola passenger is subjected to the same play of visual imagery as the active kitten, but none of this activity is initiated by the passenger. Its visual world is provided for it just as it is for us on a TV screen. When not in this contraption both kittens are kept with their mother in darkness. After some weeks, tests show that the active kitten has learned to utilize its visual fields for giving it a valid picture of the external world for the purpose of movement just as well as a normal kitten, whereas the gondola passenger has learned nothing.
The fact of learning has much in common with building a scientific theory (20). Papert emphasizes this idea in reference to learning a physical skill. He considers programming as a source of descriptive mechanisms, that is to say as a means of strengthening language. When a child learns to program with Logo, he uses the bricolage or tinkering method, a technique often used in scientific research or in artistic creation. It is a road with a beginning but which holds many surprises (21, 22, 23).
Popper describes the human being as a fallible creator of knowledge through conjectures and refutations. Consequently education should emphasize the process of problem solving rather than obtaining results. Popper believes it is impossible that knowledge is derived only from observation. Observation, he asserts, comes after expectations. And this applies to the baby who tries to grab everything he sees as much as to the scientist who creates new theories about the universe: both proceed by trial and error, correcting their theories in the light of unfulfilled expectations. Popper says: "If I perceive a sofa, I immediately think one can sit on it. This is part of perception. That is why perception essentially surpasses the content of the signs" (24). "The process of bringing, by means of mutation and selection, the cognitive structures to the real world is not so much a process of adaptation as a process of active construction of theories and of testing them through the difficult process of examination" (25). Papert adopts a similar criterion for the application of Logo and explains: "…when a student, or anyone, sticks with the drive to make an actual connection, an actual program actually run (in a computer or in life), then rigor grows. Discipline flips from the external and oppressing 'get it right' to the internal and intellectual 'make it work'" (26). When programming with Logo children get used to the idea that, in most cases, it is better to find a quick, simple, economic, solution to a problem, and then debug it until it works properly, than to insist on a definite, slow, and complex solution, apparently without mistakes. And he adds: "What an individual can learn, and how he learns it, depends on what models he has available" (27).
Thus, the classroom –just as the laboratory– provides a context where theories can be built and refuted, a place where errors can be committed… and where one can learn from them. The teacher is not a judge but a person who provides the proper environment where the child can recognize errors and correct them. Autonomy is a goal of learning that can only be achieved when learning itself becomes an exercise of autonomy.
These theories about the learning process impose changes in the teacher-student relationship. In the new learning settings teachers learn and students can create complex theories. Karl Popper considers that a new ethics is necessary based on a new kind of fallible, uncertain knowledge, as he believes that errors are unavoidable. And he explains: "Any new discovery, or new concept, falsifies a theory established up to that moment; a theory that does not produce it, that can not produce it. The theory, for example, that one can not speak with someone in a distant place, therefore telephones can not exist, is constantly verified till the telephone was invented. The same is true for the theory that says that people can not fly. Thus, this means that any theory that has been built based on the fact that anything like that does not exist, has been up to that moment constantly confirmed" (28). That is why, the importance given to the development of critical thinking oriented to the discovery of error; a concept shared by advanced researchers like Marvin Minsky who asserts: "To understand how something works, it helps to know how it can fail" (29).
Although Karl Popper never dealt specifically with education, H. J. Perkinson shows "his system of conjectures and refutations may be fashioned into a model of education –an approach which views the teacher not as someone who injects predigested knowledge into the passive minds of students, but as one who elicits student responses, creates environments in which ideas can be criticized freely and mistakes made without humiliation: in short, a classroom in which the student is respected as a solver of problems and originator of ideas" (30).
For his part, Seymour Papert, as was pointed out by Cynthia Solomon, a researcher who carried out a comparative evaluation of the use of computers in education, follows Piaget in his assertion that people have different theories to explain the world, and that those theories keep changing as long as they learn, and, what is most important, that they learn while doing (31). Papert's ideas rest upon the educational theories that sustain that learning environments must be focussed on the student and not on the teacher.
So far, I have pointed out some coincidences that arise from an analysis of Popper and Papert's ideas. I don't intend to say this is all but, I want to emphasize some premises that have gained increasingly wide acceptance in different educational circles. Both thinkers propose less authoritative education, based on human fallibility and on the search for freedom. And it is in their dreams where they coincide once more. Popper writes: "In 1917, I understood very clearly what I had been feeling within since long ago: In our famous high schools… we were wasting our time miserably, although our teachers were very learned and endeavoured to make of our schools the best in the world. The fact that part of their teaching was extremely dull –hours and hours of agony without hope– was not new for me. At school one was exposed to discovery when one's own thoughts were engaged with something disconnected from the lesson; one was forced to pay attention… I dreamed of creating a school where the young could learn without weariness and where they were stimulated to present problems and discuss them; a school where one should not have to listen to undesirable answers to unasked questions"(32).
Papert writes: "…the classroom is an artificial and inefficient learning environment that society has been forced to invent because its informal environments fail in certain essential learning domains… I believe that the computer presence will enable us to modify the learning environment outside the classroom so that much -if not all- the knowledge schools presently try to teach with such pain and expense and such limited success, will be learned in the same way the child learns to talk, painlessly, successfully, and without instruction" (33).
These concepts could be regarded as utopias to many people. We instead consider them as necessary beacons for today's education.
1. Zanotti, L. J., "Papert: un desafío que debe aceptarse", I.I.E., Revista del Instituto de Investigaciones Educativas, Nº 43, Buenos Aires, noviembre de 1983.
2. Darós, W. R., "Concepción Popperiana del aprendizaje", I.I.E., Revista del Instituto de Investigaciones Educativas, Nº 61, Buenos Aires, abril de 1988.
3. Reggini, H. C., "Irrupción de las computadoras en la educación", I.I.E., Revista del Instituto de Investigaciones Educativas, Nº 35, Buenos Aires, abril de 1982.
4. Reggini, H. C., "Revisión del aprender y del enseñar" I.I.E., Revista del Instituto de Investigaciones Educativas, Nº 43, Buenos Aires, noviembre de 1983.
5. Popper, K. R., "Sociedad abierta, universo abierto (Conversaciones con Franz Kreuzer)", Edit. Tecnos, Madrid, 1985, p. 156.
6. Berkson, W. and Wettersten, J., "Learning from Error, Karl Popper's Psychology of Learning", Open Court Publishing Company, Illinois, E.E.U.U., 1984, p. 8.
7. Papert, S., "Mindstorms, Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas". Basic Books, Inc., Publishers. New York, 1980, p. 23.
10. Perkinson, H. J., "Education and Learning from Our Mistakes", en "In Pursuit of Truth, Essays on the Philosophy of Karl Popper on the Occasion of his 80th Birthday", Edited by Paul Levinson, Humanities Press, Atlantic, Highlands, N. J., 1982, p.141.
11. Papert, S., Op. cit., p. 214.
14. Papert, S. "Constructionism: A new Opportunity for Elementary Science Education", NSF Proposal, M.I.T., November 1986.
15. Papert, S., "Mindstorms, Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas", p. 47.
16. Popper, K. R., "Búsqueda sin término: una autobiografía intelectual", Edit. Tecnos, Madrid, 1985, pág. 43.
17. Papert, S., "Mindstorms, Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas", p. 21.
18. Popper, K. R., And Eccles, J. C., "The Self and Its Brain". Springer International, Berlin, 1977, p. 435.
19. Held, R. and Hein A., "Movement-produced Stimulation in the Development of Visually Guided Behaviour", Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psichology, 56, 1963, ps. 872-6.
20. Papert, S., "Mindstorms, Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas", p. 96.
22. Reggini, H. C., "Alas para la mente", Ediciones Galápago, Buenos Aires, 1982, p. 91.
23. Reggini, H. C., "Ideas y formas", Ediciones Galápago, Buenos Aires, 1985, p. 15.
24. Popper, K. R., "Sociedad abierta, universo abierto (Conversaciones con Franz Kreuzer)", p. 92.
28. Popper, K. R., "Sociedad abierta, universo abierto (Conversaciones con Franz Kreuzer)", pág. 40.
29. Minsky, M., "La sociedad de la mente", Ediciones Galápago, Buenos Aires, 1987, Cap. 14.2, p. 142.
30. Levinson, P., "In Pursuit of Truth, Essays on the Philosophy of Karl Popper on the Occasion of his 80th Birthday", p. 9.
31. Solomon, C., "Computer Environments for Children. A Reflection on Theories of Learning and Education", The M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, MA, 1986.
32. Popper, K. R., "Búsqueda sin término: una autografía intelectual", ps. 43, 54.
33. Papert, S., "Mindstorms, Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas", p. 9.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, May 1998.


The Blue Envious Teardrop glass cremation keepsake is a personal way to remember the love of someone that has passed. Each Envious is crafted of blue cut glass and has a small interior compartment that holds a tribute that you choose. The Blue Envious urn pendant comes with a chain that matches. Size 1/2"w x 5/8"h.


Simplifies authoring for major upgrades, including support for preventing downgrades.
The parent Product element must have valid UpgradeCode and Version attributes.
When the FindRelatedProducts action detects a related product installed on the system, it appends the product code to the property named WIX_UPGRADE_DETECTED. After the FindRelatedProducts action is run, the value of the WIX_UPGRADE_DETECTED property is a list of product codes, separated by semicolons (;), detected on the system.
AllowDowngrades YesNoType When set to no (the default), products with lower version numbers are blocked from installing when a product with a higher version is installed; the DowngradeErrorMessage attribute must also be specified.
When set to yes, any version can be installed over any other version.
AllowSameVersionUpgrades YesNoType When set to no (the default), installing a product with the same version and upgrade code (but different product code) is allowed and treated by MSI as two products. When set to yes, WiX sets the msidbUpgradeAttributesVersionMaxInclusive attribute, which tells MSI to treat a product with the same version as a major upgrade.
This is useful when two product versions differ only in the fourth version field. MSI specifically ignores that field when comparing product versions, so two products that differ only in the fourth version field are the same product and need this attribute set to yes to be detected.
Note that because MSI ignores the fourth product version field, setting this attribute to yes also allows downgrades when the first three product version fields are identical. For example, product version 1.0.0.1 will "upgrade" 1.0.0.2998 because they're seen as the same version (1.0.0). That could reintroduce serious bugs so the safest choice is to change the first three version fields and omit this attribute to get the default of no.
This attribute cannot be "yes" when AllowDowngrades is also "yes" -- AllowDowngrades already allows two products with the same version number to upgrade each other.
Disallow YesNoType When set to yes, products with higer version numbers are blocked from installing when a product with a lower version is installed; the UpgradeErrorMessage attribute must also be specified.
When set to no (the default), any version can be installed over any lower version.
DisallowUpgradeErrorMessage String The message displayed if users try to install a product with a higer version number when a product with a lower version is installed. Used only when Disallow is yes.
DowngradeErrorMessage String The message displayed if users try to install a product with a lower version number when a product with a higher version is installed. Used only when AllowDowngrades is no (the default).
IgnoreRemoveFailure YesNoType When set to yes, failures removing the installed product during the upgrade will be ignored.
When set to no (the default), failures removing the installed product during the upgrade will be considered a failure and, depending on the scheduling, roll back the upgrade.
MigrateFeatures YesNoType When set to yes (the default), the MigrateFeatureStates standard action will set the feature states of the upgrade product to those of the installed product.
When set to no, the installed features have no effect on the upgrade installation.
RemoveFeatures String A formatted string that contains the list of features to remove from the installed product. The default is to remove all features. Note that if you use formatted property values that evaluate to an empty string, no features will be removed; only omitting this attribute defaults to removing all features.
Schedule Enumeration Determines the scheduling of the RemoveExistingProducts standard action, which is when the installed product is removed. The default is "afterInstallValidate" which removes the installed product entirely before installing the upgrade product. It's slowest but gives the most flexibility in changing components and features in the upgrade product.
(Default) Schedules RemoveExistingProducts after the InstallValidate standard action. This scheduling removes the installed product entirely before installing the upgrade product. It's slowest but gives the most flexibility in changing components and features in the upgrade product. Note that if the installation of the upgrade product fails, the machine will have neither version installed.
Schedules RemoveExistingProducts after the InstallInitialize standard action. This is similar to the afterInstallValidate scheduling, but if the installation of the upgrade product fails, Windows Installer also rolls back the removal of the installed product -- in other words, reinstalls it.
Schedules RemoveExistingProducts between the InstallExecute and InstallFinalize standard actions. This scheduling installs the upgrade product "on top of" the installed product then lets RemoveExistingProducts uninstall any components that don't also exist in the upgrade product. Note that this scheduling requires strict adherence to the component rules because it relies on component reference counts to be accurate during installation of the upgrade product and removal of the installed product. For more information, see Bob Arnson's blog post "Paying for Upgrades" for details. If installation of the upgrade product fails, Windows Installer also rolls back the removal of the installed product -- in other words, reinstalls it.
Schedules RemoveExistingProducts between the InstallExecuteAgain and InstallFinalize standard actions. This is identical to the afterInstallExecute scheduling but after the InstallExecuteAgain standard action instead of InstallExecute.
Schedules RemoveExistingProducts after the InstallFinalize standard action. This is similar to the afterInstallExecute and afterInstallExecuteAgain schedulings but takes place outside the installation transaction so if installation of the upgrade product fails, Windows Installer does not roll back the removal of the installed product, so the machine will have both versions installed.


text:
Ports on alert over Bay changes
Top Bangla News
SC Rejects Yunus Plea
The Supreme Court has rejected the petition of Muhammad Yunus for reversing its earlier verdict on his removal from Grameen Bank.
The full court of the Appellate Division also snubbed another petition filed by nine Bank directors against the High Court order that backed Yunus sacking.
The full court ended simultaneous hearings on the petitions on Wednesday.
The top appeals court in its judgement observed that the recall petition was made out of 'misconception'.
It also clarified that the appeal was heard in line with Article 104 of the constitution, not as a recall petition.
Asked whether Yunus had lost the final legal battle with Thursday's judgement, attorney general Mahbubey Alam said, "Let's see if they make any review petition.
"Yunus' lawyer Kamal Hossain was clearly annoyed.
He told reporters the constitution had been entirely violated inside the High Court.
"We went to the Supreme Court to protest it, but we did not get [justice].
""I have been practising for the last 52 years, but never witnessed such unprecedented incident," he said.
"I reckon I have to enrol at the university once again to learn the twenty-first century's constitutional rights," Hossain added.
The nine directors urged the government to appoint Yunus as chairman of Grameen Bank at a press conference immediately after the Thursday's court order.
But attorney general Alam told reporters, "This is not possible, because the Grameen Bank chairman is appointed among the state nominated ones from the bank's board of
"Yunus and the nine directors filed separate petitions challenging the legality of his removal, but the High Court in its verdict on Mar 8 dismissed the petitions.
The central bank on Mar 2 removed the Nobel laureate as the micro-lender's managing director for allegedly flouting rules when he was reappointed in 1999.
The Appellate Division upheld the High Court verdict on Apr 5 when Yunus and the nine directors prayed for further hearing and recalling of the apex court judgement.
The removal of Yunus drew flaks from home and abroad with the US warning that bilateral ties would be affected if an amicable resolution was not found.
Main opposition BNP also spoke against the decision, while his supporters said the firing was the culmination of a political vendetta against him.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has accused Yunus, who briefly set up his own political party in 2007 during the military-run caretaker government, of using 'tricks' to
avoid taxes and 'sucking blood of the poor' with his bank's loans.
The United States had warned that ties with Bangladesh could be affected if a solution was not found to the clash between the government and Yunus.
Martin Hirsch, special envoy of French president Nicholas Sarkozy, also visited Dhaka last month to explore avenues for a possible mediation between Yunus and the
government.
72 Charter is in Effect: Suranjit
Brushing aside the allegation of the opposition leader that the country was going through a constitutional crisis, Awami League leader Suranjit Sengupta has said the 1972
constitution is in place.
"If there is no constitution in the country, how you are the leader of the opposition? How are you flying the national flag in your car? Could you do that had there been
no constitution?" Suranjit questioned Khaleda Zia.
The remarks of the Awami League Presidium member came while he was addressing a discussion organised by Bangabandhu Sangskritik Parishad at the Dhaka Reporters Unity on
Thursday.
Claiming that the 1972 constitution is in effect, Suranjit, also co-chair of the parliamentary committee on constitution amendment, said, "The High Court has repealed
all the orders promulgated by the military government.
He said the committee formed to make recommendations for amendments to the constitution had been tirelessly working to get the job done.
BanglaNewspaper.com

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: Used to or past simple? Are these sentences both right ? :

Did you used to visit her ?

and

Did you visit her ?

A: Both sentences are correct.

Did you used to visit her?

This sentence asks about a past habit, meaning did the person visit many times over some time period ending in the past.

Did you visit her?

This sentence asks about a specific occurrence.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
 /*
 * Created on Mar 16, 2004
 *
 * To change the template for this generated file go to
 * Window - Preferences - Java - Code Generation - Code and Comments
 */
package net.sf.appia.test.broadcast.adeb;

import net.sf.appia.core.AppiaEventException;
import net.sf.appia.core.Channel;
import net.sf.appia.core.Session;
import net.sf.appia.core.events.SendableEvent;
import net.sf.appia.core.message.Message;

/**
 * This class defines a MyEccoEvent
 *
 * @author Jose Mocito
 * @version 1.0
 */
public class BroadcastEvent extends SendableEvent {

	private String text;
	private int seqnum=-1;

    /**
     * Creates a new MyEccoEvent.
     */
    public BroadcastEvent() {
        super();
    }

    /**
     * Creates a new MyEccoEvent.
     * @param channel
     * @param dir
     * @param source
     * @param msg
     * @throws AppiaEventException
     */
    public BroadcastEvent(Channel channel, int dir, Session source, Message msg) throws AppiaEventException {
        super(channel, dir, source, msg);
    }

    /**
     * Creates a new MyEccoEvent.
     * @param channel
     * @param dir
     * @param source
     * @throws AppiaEventException
     */
    public BroadcastEvent(Channel channel, int dir, Session source) throws AppiaEventException {
        super(channel, dir, source);
    }

    /**
     * Creates a new MyEccoEvent.
     * @param msg
     */
    public BroadcastEvent(Message msg) {
        super(msg);
    }

    /**
     * Gets the message text.
     * @return the message text.
     */
	public String getText() {
		return text;
	}

    /**
     * Sets the message text.
     * @param text the message text
     */
	public void setText(String text) {
		this.text = text;
	}

    public void setSeqnum(int seqnum) {
        this.seqnum = seqnum;
    }

    public int getSeqnum() {
        return seqnum;
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Adedayo Ademokoya is a writer and poet who is crazy in love with bringing words to life. He sometimes writes with the pseudonym 'Fantasticdee'. Some of his works have appeared on BravesArts Africa, Praxis Magazine, Parousia Magazine, The Rising Phoenix Review, African Writer, Thought Catalog and elsewhere.


While attending undergraduate school at Syracuse University I took several film classes including one exploring French New Wave film. A film that struck me particularly was Alan Resnais' "Last Year at Marienbad." It's a very dense, slow film with landscapes inpired by surrealist paintings. The film also plays with time. "Piecer" embodies many of these qualities. The female figure repeats, she's shown rolling over, captured in different snippets of time. The male figure is static anchoring, inhabiting a particular time.
Like the rest of the "suburbia" series the imagery in "piecer" is paired down and mundain. The landscape is populated with trimmed bushes, a lawn, and a metal pole. These objects exist everywhere in the suburban landscape but placed in the picture's barren atmosphere they gain a hidden energy. In many ways this drawing and the others from this series anticipate David Lynch's "Blue Velvet" which came out three years after. Having switched from abstract to narrative painting I had made a conscious decision to draw imagery from what I knew. At that point in my life all I really knew of the world was from growing up in a mid-century suburban neighborhood and adolescent angst.


text:
President Kenyatta inspects several development projects
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan 11 – President Uhuru Kenyatta Sunday inspected several ongoing national Government development projects.
The Head of State visited Kisumu Port where the Kenyan military is constructing a new ship yard as part of the ongoing rehabilitation and expansion of the important lake transport facility.
From the port, President Kenyatta made an aerial inspection of the new Shs 350 million Uhuru Business Complex, an ultra-modern retail market being constructed at Kisumu's Jua Kali area by the National Government on 23 acres of land donated by Kenya Railways.
The President, who was accompanied by former Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Chief of Defence Forces General Robert Kibochi, also inspected the ongoing construction of the Shs 415 million Jomo Kenyatta Stadium in Mamboleo, Kisumu County.
At the Stadium, whose construction he commissioned in October last year and is currently 65 percent complete, the Head of State was joined by Kisumu Governor Prof Anyang Nyong'o and Devolution CS Eugene Wamalwa.
The President expressed satisfaction with the progress made in the construction of the sports complex and encouraged the contractor to ensure the facility is ready for use by April this year.
On his way back to Nairobi, President Kenyatta overflew and inspected the ongoing rehabilitation of the Nairobi to Western Kenya Meter Gauge Railway (MGR). The old railway line is being rehabilitated from Longonot to Kisumu and Malaba respectively.
The President made a brief stopover at the Naivasha Inland Container Depot (ICD) where Kenya Railways is laying a new 24-kilometer railway line to link the new Standard Gauge Railway with the rehabilitated MGR.
The MGR is being rehabilitated by a multi-agency team led by the Kenya Defence Forces as part of a broad Government strategy to consolidate the country's position as the leading trade gateway to the East African hinterland.


text:
40,252 1930 1939 foto's en beelden
Blader door de 40.252 1930 1939 beschikbare stockfoto's en beelden, of begin een nieuwe zoekopdracht om meer stockfoto's en beelden te vinden.
porsche 64 prototype - 1930 1939 stockfoto's en -beelden
new york worlds fair 1939 stamp - 1930 1939 stockfoto's en -beelden
Princess Margaret, left, and Princess Elizabeth, future Queen Elizabeth II, right, at the Royal Agricultural Show in 1939. Princess Margaret,...
Judy Garland, on-set of the Film, "The Wizard of Oz", 1939.
Flags with swastikas in the streets of Gdansk at the German national day, Poland, from L'Illustrazione Italiana, Year LXVI, No 34, August 20, 1939.
Princess Elizabeth with a horse at Windsor on her 13th birthday.
Poster for William Dieterle's 1939 drama 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' starring Charles Laughton and Maureen O'Hara.
35mm film photo shows a waist-level portrait of the photographer's wife. She wears a navy-colored blouse and smiles against the backdrop of a bright...
Two Cowgirls, Quarter Circle U Ranch, Montana, USA, Arthur Rothstein for Farm Security Administration, June 1939.
American Flag, Labor Day, Greendale, Wisconsin, USA, a Greenbelt Community Constructed by U.S. Department of Agriculture as Part of President...
Texas, San Antonio Relief Line During The Depression.
British Olympic skier Peter Lunn and the Hon Antoinette Preston , after their wedding at St. James's, Spanish Place, London, 24th April 1939. After...
Elsie the barmaid chats to young couples in the Quarter Deck Bar at the Majestic Hotel in Onchan Head, Isle of Man, 9th September 1939. Original...
Work Projects Administration Poster, 'WPA Rumor', Man with WPA Shovel Attacking Wolf Labeled Rumor, Artist Vera Bock, 1939.
Francoist army parading in front of Francisco Franco, May 19 Madrid, Spain, Spanish Civil War, 20th century.
Adolf Hitler speaking with some senior officers near the front line, Poland, World War II, from L'Illustrazione Italiana, Year LXVI, No 38, September...
Man Weighing Cotton, Farm Security Administration Project, Sunflower Plantation, Merigold, Mississippi, USA, Marion Post Wolcott for Farm Security...
Public Health Doctor giving Tenant Family Medicine for Malaria, near Columbia, South Carolina, USA, Marion Post Wolcott for Farm Security...
Green Bay Packers 1939 team photo.
Members of the Women's Land Army stacking and protecting potatoes from frost with layers of straw during the potato harvest on 28th September 1939 on...
straatbeeld op 7th en locust, des moines, iowa 1939 inclusief katz drug store - 1930 1939 stockfoto's en -beelden
Dude Girl "Rassling" a Calf, Quarter Circle U Ranch Roundup, Montana, USA, Arthur Rothstein, Farm Security Administration, June 1939.
1930s 1939 WORLDS FAIR SIDEWALK OF THEME CENTER LOOKING TO TRYLON AND PERISPHERE NEW YORK CITY USA
War and Conflict, Spanish Civil War , pic: 1st April 1939, Jubilation in the village of Templique near Madrid after the capital had surrendered to...
Two English children play cards with native children of Pondoland. | Location: Pondoland, South Africa.
Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie in 1936, as he delivered his famed address before the League of Nations. In the speech, he urged the body to save...
Group portrait at Anne Frank's 10th Birthday party taken from her photo album, Merwedeplein, Amsterdam, Holland.
Picture taken on May 28, 1939 at Geneva showing the General Assembly session of the League of nations.
Bert Lahr , US actor and comedian, Jack Haley , US actor, Ray Bolger , US actor, Judy Garland , US actress and singer, and Margaret Hamilton , US...
Group of people jitterbugging in a juke joint in Clarksdale, Mississippi.
The royal family arriving at the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, July 1939. From centre, left to right: Princess Margaret , Queen Elizabeth, King...
The Strand, London looking towards St Mary's-in-the-Strand.
Ohio State, center, John Schick makes a basket during the first NCAA Photos via Getty Imagess via Getty Images Men's Basketball National Championship...
Young girl modeling the latest college fashions.
Spanish refugees on the road during the Spanish Civil War, followed by a donkey.
Party of British athletes leave Croydon Airport in London for Cologne in Germany, 19th August 1939. They are headed by hurdler Lord Burghley.
Renown and HMS Hood with other line-of-battle ships during a Royal Navy Exercise in the English Channel, 1939.
Berlin - Pariser Platz mit Brandenburger Tor - 1939
The Military Man and the Lady', 1779 . An overly adorned lady accompanied by her suitor, glances up at a couple leaning on a wall. The painting is...
American actress and singer Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale in 'The Wizard of Oz', 1939.
Aircraft Fokker XII of K.L.M. Company . About 1935-1939.
War 1939-1945. Tomb in the unknown Soldier. Paris.
Opening of the parade of the Wehrmacht on Hitler's 50th birthday: a squadron of the Luftwaffe is flying over the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin
Germany : The Koenigsplatz in Munich after its reconstruction; buildings from the left: the 'Fuehrer Building', the two 'Honorary Temples for the...
German Empire : Young woman standing at the open window in a train cabin - Photographer: Paul Mai- undatedVintage property of ullstein bild
Florida: Woman wearing a bikini at the beach. 1939
Adolf Hitler, , Politiker, NSDAP, D, Der Trauerzug zum Friedhof; an der Spitze, Jakob Grimminger mit der 'Blutfahne' von, 1923; im Hintergrund das...
Few of the fifty child refugees from Nazi Germany who entered the United States today under the wing of Gilbert J. Kraus, wealthy Philadelphia...
Rome, Italy: Fascist Women Parade For Il Duce. Fascist women, equipped with gas masks, are pictured as they took part in the parade of 70,000 women...
Aldershot; England - King George VI and his smiling Queen walk to the parade grounds to take the salute after attending divine service at the newly...
Scene from 'Gone With The Wind', 1939. Still showing part of the burning of Atlanta sequence. MGM film based on the novel of the American Civil War...
Dad being buried on Blackpool Beach. Original Publication: Picture Post - 167 - So This Is Blackpool - pub. 1939
Women's Auxiliary Fire Service officer fielding calls on a switchboard at her fire station. She and her colleagues have volunteered for service to...
Family on the beach at Brighton, with gas masks at the ready.
Series of six studio portraits of Anne Frank at age ten looking in different directions taken from her photo album, Amsterdam, Holland.
Youngsters on holiday amuse themselves racing toy cars on a sand track on Bognor Regis beach, Sussex.
The Battle of Khalkhyn Gol was the decisive engagement of the undeclared SovietÐJapanese Border War fought between the Soviet Union, Mongolia and the...
The bank of the River Clyde in Glasgow, Scotland, 1939. Original Publication : Picture Post - 91- Glasgow - pub. 1st April 1939
Workers pickling cucumber for canning at the canning factory C. Th. Lampe in Brunswick, Germany 1939.
Workers prepare cucumber for canning at the canning factory C. Th. Lampe in Brunswick, Germany 1939.