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Title: Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams: Explorations in Massively Parallel Microworlds (Complex Adaptive Systems) by Mitchel Resnick ISBN: 0-262-68093-9 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 10 January, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.92 (12 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: interesting, but describes an old version of the software
Comment: This is a book describing the research of a team at MIT using a version of the educational language "Logo". Running in a simple graphical environment which supports multiple parallel operation of code in the same shared space. Write a few lines of code for an "ant", then let 1000 of them loose. The current version of this "StarLogo" system is written in Java, and available as a free download for anyone to play with.
The use of Logo is both a strength and a weakness of the approach. The strength is that the code is concise and easy to understand. The weakness is that there is only one source of the software, and anyone wishing to try it is limited to the available download. This would not be such a limitation if the book described the same version, but unfortunately things have moved on a lot since the book was written, and few (if any) of the examples will work without alteration.
As well as the development of the StarLogo system, the book covers experiments in emergent behaviour. Typical sections include how parameter and environment changes can affect the growth and development of simulated ant colonies, and a theoretical basis for those "phantom traffic jams" we have all experienced.
This book is certainly interesting if you are interested in developing parallel software simulations, or if you are interested in marginal computer languages, but don't expect the code to work without effort.
Rating: 4
Summary: Inspirational book for educators
Comment: I found this book very inspirational. As an educator, I am interested in bringing elementary computer programming back to the primary and secondary school curriculum. (Programming disappeared in the early to mid 1990s.)
This book is for the teacher who wants to use computers to help kids (or grown-up kids-at-heart like myself) explore and understand the world around them. There is no software included with the book; rather, this is a book about the author's experiences in using the StarLOGO language to introduce children to parallel, distributed programming, a technique that enables modeling of the interaction of termites and ants, the flow of traffic, and the burn patterns of forest fires. Modeling the real world is an excellent way for kids to get excited about programming because the results are not as "abstract" as, say, simply drawing pictures on the screen or calculating monthly budgets. This is an "idea" book for educators looking for new ways to bring computing to our younger generations.
The book starts slowly and is very detailed at the beginning. I like that. The author describes some of the interactions he had with the kids he was teaching. Reading about the problems the kids faced and how he guided them to a solution was fascinating. Unfortunately, as the book progresses, the author seems to be in a "hurry" to finish: the programming anecdotes become less detailed and there are fewer pictures to illustrate the projects. I would have liked to read about them in more detail. That's the one shortcoming of this book.
If you're a teacher or computer-minded parent looking for ways to challenge your kids with new programming projects that model real life, this is a good book to read. It's not intended for your kids to read, nor is it a set of "canned" projects, but I think you'll find some good ideas in it.
Rating: 5
Summary: Invention - on all levels
Comment: This book provided the motivating force to write my first, and last, review for Amazon.com.
Over the past 5 years since my first reading Mitchel Resnick's Turtles Turmites and Traffic Jams, the book has come up on numerous occasions related to several topics, two of which most basically:
1) Writing style - Resnick's clear, well-researched, simple yet profound style. His background as journalist and inventor enables TT&T to walk a new line between source material and criticism.
2) Content - Resnick's theoretical application of emergent behavior to education is robust; his practical educational tools (starlogo and later, mindstorms) are a fundamentally clear and wondrous collapsing of idea into artifact.
I will include this book with few others in my life bibliography.
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Title: Adventures in Modeling: Exploring Complex, Dynamic Systems with StarLogo by Vanessa Stevens Colella, Eric Klopfer, Mitchel Resnick ISBN: 0807740829 Publisher: Teachers College Pr Pub. Date: 01 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity by John H. Holland, Heather Mimnaugh ISBN: 0201442302 Publisher: Perseus Publishing Pub. Date: September, 1996 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Growing Artificial Societies: Social Science from the Bottom Up by Joshua M. Epstein, Robert L. Axtell ISBN: 0262550253 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 08 November, 1996 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: Simulation for the Social Scientist by G. Nigel Gilbert, Klaus G. Troitzsch ISBN: 0335197442 Publisher: Open Univ Pr Pub. Date: January, 1999 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: The Complexity of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod ISBN: 0691015678 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 18 August, 1997 List Price(USD): $17.12 |
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