Report on PC Logo

I chose one of my cousins to try out the PC logo programming. She is a Year 4 student
from Sekolah Rendah Amar Pahlawan.

Before we start the activity, I asked her whether she has learned the topic on shapes and
asked her to name some shapes that she knows. Then she responds by giving some
shapes such as rectangle, triangle, square and circle.

I then proceed with the activity on PC Logo. As she has never been exposed to this
program before, so I have to explain on how to use this program and what it is use for. I
then show her the basic commands that are usually used to move the turtle to make a
drawing such as fd (forward), rt (right turn), lt (left turn), cs (clear screen). I also show
her how to draw a square using the commands step by step. Then we try to draw another
shape by asking her to give the commands that I should type in to draw a rectangle.

Then I give her a chance to make any shapes that she wants. First, she creates a bigger
square by increasing the number by 40 and able to draw it by using her own commands.
And then, I asked her to name the shapes that she has created. And she responds by
telling me that it is a ‘square’. Then I asked her to tell me the properties of the square and
she response by saying that it has 4 sides and all sides are equal. I also asked her what the
angle of each corner of the square is. She told me that it is 90 degrees and I asked her
how she knew. She said that it is a right angle and yet in the command itself has the
number 90 that is rt 90.

Then I asked her to draw another shape and she draws a bigger rectangle. And then, I
asked her to name it. And she responds by telling me that it is a ‘rectangle’. Then I asked
her to tell me the properties of the rectangle and her response by saying that it has 4 sides
and opposite sides are equal and she also explained that the angle of each corner is 90
degrees without me asking her.
After the rectangle, I asked her to draw other shapes like triangle but she was not able to
create the instruction to draw it. She does not have ideas how and by how much to make
the turn.

As a conclusion, it seems that she enjoy the activity as it is interesting and fun. But
unfortunately, she can only draw simple shapes that have been showed earlier and no
confident to try to draw other shapes. It is due to several factors such as limited time to
explore more in creating and also maybe she has a little knowledge on the topic ‘angle’
and could not relate with this activity.

In order to develop the student skills in using the PC Logo, they need regular practice.
They also need to know more about the properties of the shapes so that they can create
more creative drawings.