[Pl-seminar] [Fwd: Shireen Yadollahpour] TALK TODAY 3:00 Ken Kahn: ToonTalk, Playground, WebLabs, and more

[Mitchell Wand]

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Thread-Topic: TALK: ToonTalk, Playground, WebLabs, and more
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From: "Shireen Yadollahpour" <Shireen2 at ceylon.lcs.mit.edu>
To: <ai-seminar at ai.mit.edu>
Subject: TALK TODAY 3:00 Ken Kahn: ToonTalk, Playground, WebLabs, and more
Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 12:29:50 -0400

TODAY 3:00 PM

ToonTalk, Playground, WebLabs, and more
Speaker: Ken Kahn
Speaker Affiliation: ToonTalk
Host: Professor Martin Rinard
Host Affiliation: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science

Date: 05-13-2003
Time: 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Refreshments: 2:45 PM
Location: NE43-6th Floor Lounge

Abstract:

ToonTalk (www.toontalk.com) was conceived over ten years ago when I saw =
a way to make programming itself concrete by borrowing ideas from video =
games and applying them concurrent constraint programming.  Five years =
later it became a commmercial product and the foundation of a large =
European research project called playground.  The Playground Project =
(www.ioe.ac.uk/playground) produced layers of software on top of =
ToonTalk that enabled children six to eight years old to build their own =
video games.  An even larger European research project called WebLabs =
(www.weblabs.eu.com) has recently begun to build upon ToonTalk =
components to enable children to build and publish scientific models and =
mathematical explorations.  This talk will introduce ToonTalk, discuss =
the underlying computer science, and present educational research that =
builds upon ToonTalk.

Biography:=20
 Ken Kahn has been doing research on computer programming tools for =
children since 1975 when he was associated withe the Logo group as a =
doctoral student at MIT.  Ken has been building programming languages =
for almost thirty years.  Among the languages that he has worked on are =
LM-Prolog, Uniform, Vulcan, Janus, CLOS, CommonLoops, and Pictorial =
Janus.  He is the designer and implementer of ToonTalk, an animated =
programming language for children widely used in schools and research =
since its first release in 1998.  Kahn consulted for the Playground =
Project and is currently participating in the WebLabs Project.

Relevant URL(S):=20
For more information please contact: Shireen Yadollahpour, 617-253-9620, =
shireen at cag.lcs.mit.edu
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