COMPUTERS IN EDUCATION

LECTURE NOTES AND SOURCES

ABSTRACT 3
THROUGH FIRE AND WATER IN GEOMLAND
or Teaching Informatics in a Computer Environment of a Math Laboratory Type

Bojidar Sendov

Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics

Sofia University, Bulgaria

A lot of educationalists claim that programming should not be taught at school since only few student
for any concrete knowledge that would not be used directly into one's future profession. In other wo
Since informatics methods and notions can be illustrated in different contexts, learning informatics

2. GEOMLAND
GEOMLAND (called originally Plane Geometry System) was designed to be a mathematical laboratory . The
playing the part of experimenters in this laboratory may
- construct the basic plane geometry objects (points, segments, lines, etc.);
- act upon them (using a great variety of operations typical of this field);
- watch the geometric constructions and examine their parameters (coordinates, lengths, directions, e
The language of GEOMLAND provides possibilities for working directly with geometric objects. This lan
Next we are going to show how some basic notions of programming can be introduced (at the moment they

3. A New Approach to an Old Problem

A man has a camp-site in a large flat clearing next to a straight river. He sees a large spark leap f
put out the fire?
We are going to model this situation in our Laboratory. That will enable us to investigate a number o
Let the man be 150 feet from the river at point M, the tent be 75 feet from the river at point T and
\

3.1. Creating the Model

Let us start our investigation. We choose the point C to be at the centre of the coordinate plane:
OBJECT "C POINT 0 0
We interpret this command as follows: Construct an object named C which is a point with coordinates (
As a result a point (in the form of a small circle) is displayed at the centre of the screen and it i
the river as a straight horizontal line passing through point C:
OBJECT "R LINE :C 0
It means: Construct an object named R which is a line passing through point C and having a heading 0.
We proceed with constructing point M. Since the river coincides with x-axis and C has coordinates (0,
OBJECT "M POINT 0 150
In order to construct point D (belonging to line R at a distance of 300 on the right of C) we could f
OBJECT "D POINTON :R 300
It means: Construct a point on line R at a distance of 300 from point C (the line's origin)
The point T will also be constructed by taking into account its position with respect to line R and p
to R and starting at point D:
OBJECT "T POINT :D VECTOR (HEADING :R)+90 75
Thus we have constructed points M, T, and line R (corresponding to the man, the tent, and the river,
To find the optimum location on the river we shall choose different points on line R and measure the
OBJECT "P POINTON :R 50
We construct segments PM (named m) and PT (named t):
OBJECT "m SEGMENT :P :M
OBJECT "t SEGMENT :P :T
So we have interpreted the problem in terms of GEOMLAND, thus modelling the real situation in our lab

The assignment property of GEOMLAND considerably facilitates the experiments with geometric structure
tively. Since the geometric figures represent a set of objects with specific relations among them the
is field.

References
1. Papert S. Windstorms: Children, Computers and Powerful Ideas, The Harvester Press, 1980
2. Sendov B., Dicheva D. Mathematical Laboratory in Logo Style, in Lovis F., Tagg D.E. eds., Computer
3. Filimonov R., Sendov B. Drawing Logo Closer to the Curriculum in Schuyten G., Valcke M. eds., Proc
4. Kolcheva M., Sendova E. Reinventing the Elements, a paper delivered at Colloque LOGO et Apprentiss
5. Goodyear P., Logo - A Guide to Learning through Programming, England: Ellis Horwood Limited, 1984
6. Ross P., LOGO Programming, Addison-Wesley Publishers Limited, 1983
7. Vitale B. L'integration de l'informatique à la pratique pédagogique, vol. 1 CRPP, Geneve, 1990

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