Logo and Intelligent Videodisc Applications for Pre-Readers

Abstract

Literacy has a profound affect on the mind and thinking as well as on a person's station in his society. We believe that exposure to the pervasive computer presence will dramatically alter the accessibility of the written word. Here we describe the Word Worlds Machine—an intelligent video-disc system controlled through the novice-accessible Logo programming lanaguage—as a concrete example of how frontier technology can be put in the service of human needs through a focus on the communication of powerful ideas. This system's design is specific for pre-literate children of the west. This specificity permits us to define application ideas that reach down to a fine grain of detail which raises immediately even such technical issues as data-base organization. The particular example around which the design is constructed is not, however, a constraint on its generality. With custom-designed input terminals and a picture data base, use of the Word Worlds Machine may be independent of orthography, language, and culture. To the extent this is true, such a system presents an opportunity for significant cooperative interaction between technologists and individuals from less developed countries.