From LOGO to Tekhne: 20 Years Combining Programming and Creative Learning

In 2025, it’s been twenty years since I first volunteered in India —an experience that also marked my first time working with children in a school. Those months at Shanti Bhavan —a residential school for children from disadvantaged communities— had a profound impact on my professional path and were the seed of many projects, initiatives, travels, and connections that have shaped my life over the last two decades.

With the perspective these twenty years bring, I write these lines to share a brief summary of the story, ideas, and actions that led a computer engineer specialized in Artificial Intelligence to become someone who designs creative learning experiences for children and young people around the world and teaches technology at a faculty of education.

Back in 2005, at Shanti Bhavan, I had to do many things: from helping to set up the computer lab or coaching basketball, to organizing donated materials or tutoring students in math. But the most formative task was teaching computer science to students from fourth to eighth grade for three consecutive months.

With no prior teaching experience (except for that pedagogical background one gathers as a student), I found myself teaching five classes a day. I still remember entering the classroom on the first day, nervous and excited. I didn’t know if I could do it or if the kids would follow. The subject itself wasn’t supposed to be a problem for a computer engineer like me, so I dove in without hesitation. There was a curriculum to follow, and I still remember the first class: input and output devices.

That computer curriculum, let me say it, was boring and very theoretical. I quickly felt that the vitality and potential of those kids were dissolving into sparkless classes. It seemed obvious that computer science could be more experiential and hands-on. So, just a week into teaching, I made what I now see as a bold decision: I would dedicate the first twenty minutes of each class to the curriculum, and the rest to doing something "more interesting." That’s how I phrased it back then, but twenty years later, I’d say my intention was "for the children to use technology to create, express themselves, and learn to think".

I didn’t know how the other teachers would take it, or if I was disappointing the school’s expectations. But I decided to take the risk. I’m deeply grateful for the trust and autonomy I was given by the principal at the time, Lalitha Law.

One night, after dinner and before bed, I spent a long time trying to recall meaningful experiences from my own computer classes at La Salle Girona, the school I had attended. Suddenly, a flash of insight: we would do LOGO.

I made this decision without knowing that LOGO was the first programming language designed for children, or that behind it was an entire theory of learning. I had never heard of Seymour Papert or Constructionism. But I remembered having fun with LOGO as a child, and intuitively felt that learning to program was beneficial for thinking, regardless of one’s future profession.

In 2005, there was no Internet at Shanti Bhavan. So I had to wait until the following Sunday to go to a cybercafé in Bangalore and download a version of LOGO onto a 3.5-inch floppy disk. I installed it on all the school’s computers and spent the next weeks running daily LOGO workshops.

Looking back, I would now approach those workshops quite differently, using active learning methodologies and encouraging teamwork. But even with my limited teaching skills at the time, it didn’t take long to notice something special happening in the classroom.

Before my eyes, children aged eight to thirteen were learning how to break down problems, design sequences of instructions, and apply complex computer science concepts like loops and conditionals. Often they did so independently, enjoying themselves in the process. They were learning to think. Back then, it was clear to me that programming had a strong connection to analytical thinking. Now I also recognize its profound link to creative thinking.

After those first weeks, I was already convinced of the importance of teaching programming in schools, and my mind was spinning with ways to continue. And strangely enough, the path forward appeared thanks to some termites!

As I mentioned earlier, my specialization was artificial intelligence, specifically multi-agent systems, and at that time, I had read a great deal about emergent intelligence as observed in complex systems such as colonies of social insects —what is often referred to as 'swarm intelligence.'

Shanti Bhavan is in a rural area of Tamil Nadu, surrounded by massive termite mounds that look like cathedrals built by tiny insects without central control or direct communication. I was fascinated. One Sunday, with Internet access in Bangalore, I was searching online and found a book titled Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams by Mitchel Resnick [1].  It explored not only emergent intelligence in complex systems but also about LOGO programming and education. It was the book I needed. I wrote down the title in a notebook.

I finished that first stay, and I returned to Girona with a very clear feeling that the trip had marked a before and after. Professionally —because it was a turning point in my career—, but also on a personal level —some of those children from the first years are now good friends—. It was also the starting point of my fondness for the Indian subcontinent.

One of the first things I did back in Girona was buy Resnick’s book and devour it. Though technical (it was based on a thesis), it introduced fascinating ideas about how children could learn complex concepts through programming and simulating emergent behaviors. Resnick spoke admiringly of his mentor at MIT, Seymour Papert, the creator of LOGO. He also frequently mentioned Papert's 1980 book Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas [2], which I quickly acquired and read.

Mindstorms was a revelation. Some of the intuitions I had during those early LOGO workshops were articulated in depth as part of a learning theory: Constructionism. Papert, a student of Jean Piaget, argued that people learn best by creating meaningful artifacts through active exploration, reflection, and hands-on experimentation. If Piaget’s Constructivism focused on how individuals build knowledge through experience and reflection, Papert’s Constructionism emphasized learning through the creation of shared artifacts in social contexts. It’s essentially the classic idea of “learning by doing,” but Papert engaged in a deep reflection on how technology —especially personal computers, and above all, programming— had the power to transform the way we learn. Until then, I hadn’t realized that the name LOGO for the programming language wasn’t accidental. The term was inspired by the ancient Greek word lógos (λόγος), meaning word, reason, or knowledge. The name LOGO captured, from the very start of Constructionism, the idea of expressing thought through programming.

According to Papert and his followers, learning to program as a child helps articulate knowledge, take control of one's learning process, encourages precise thinking about complex problems, and stimulates creativity and critical thinking. Papert claimed that programming turns children into "little epistemologists" who are encouraged to think about how they think —boosting metacognitive skills. In some way, learning to program gives students "superpowers". Once you know how, the question becomes not "What can computers do for you?" but "What can you do with computers?". Programming blends understanding, intuition, clarity, and beauty, generating a joy for knowledge and learning (what Jorge Wagensberg called intellectual joy).

I fell in love with all these ideas and began reading more about education —Vygotsky, Dewey, Minsky, Freire... Between 2006 and 2008, I read extensively and made another visit to India, where I continued exploring how to use LOGO in schools.

But the leap came in 2009, when I decided to write my own project and submit it to a development cooperation call from the University of Girona. The project was funded, and I was able to return to Shanti Bhavan for a few more months —this time bringing along some LEGO Mindstorms robots (the name itself was a wink from LEGO to Papert), and also carrying a new tool under my arm: the Scratch programming language, designed by Resnick’s team, which built on the ideas of LOGO and took them further. At the school, I was able to focus exclusively on my project, which gave me much more time to experiment and reflect.

Robotics is closely tied to programming, and it brings a tangible, hands-on learning dimension that makes it especially compelling. Working with LEGO reconnected me with my childhood, and since then I’ve frequently used their kits in learning activities. However, given their high cost and the contexts I usually work in, I’ve also explored more affordable alternatives: small robots made with toothbrushes and the vibrating motors from mobile phones, or even underwater robots built from PVC pipes and slot car motors. Still, the great discovery of that trip was Scratch —a programming environment designed specifically for children, which has accompanied me in countless projects and initiatives ever since. Scratch is designed to let children imagine the projects they want to create, build them, play and experiment, share their work, reflect on it, and then imagine new possibilities again —in an iterative process that Resnick called the Creative Learning Spiral.

When I finished that 2009 stay at Shanti Bhavan, I knew this was what I wanted to do professionally. Luckily, Jordi Freixenet, a professor at the University of Girona, had been following my personal blog about my work in India. When I returned, he invited me to collaborate and start working on projects for children from disadvantaged communities around Girona.

That’s how UdiGitalEdu was born in 2010 at the Polytechnic School of the University of Girona, joined soon by Marta Peracaula, Mariona Niell, and Xevi Cufí. We began launching projects with a "Constructionist spirit", feeling a bit like disciples of Papert and Resnick, mainly working in high-complexity schools (a label assigned by the Catalan Department of Education to schools facing major social and educational challenges, mainly due to a high number of students from newly migrated families). Our background idea —idealistic and perhaps naïve, but honest—was the same that had taken me to India: if we promote creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration among vulnerable children, it might help them become future change-makers in their communities. It may seem naïve, but it is something I have seen and felt first-hand over the last twenty years, especially in India, where the first children I taught are already in their thirties.

Termes com Tinkering, Educació Maker, Computació Creativa, Pensament Computacional, Informàtica Desendollada, o STEAM van començar a ser part del nostre dia a dia i dels nostres projectes, i pocs anys després, el nostre grup es va fusionar amb un grup de recerca de la Facultat d’Educació i Psicologia de la UdG (el grup GRETICE), fent créixer el grup UdiGitaEdu, que va anar evolucionant, incorporant noves persones,  centrant-se cada cop més en iniciatives que giraven al voltant de la formació de mestres, i començant a treballar en projectes més grans, a escala Europea. Paral·lelament, però, vam continuar amb la mirada posada als projectes de l’Índia, i això m’ha permès seguir-hi anant de tant en tant.

Terms like Tinkering, Maker Education, Creative Computing, Computational Thinking, Unplugged Computer Science, and STEAM became part of our daily language. Later, our group joined forces with the GRETICE research group at the Faculty of Education and Psychology, and UdiGitalEdu evolved into a more consolidated project. We gradually focused more on teacher training and launched larger-scale initiatives across Europe. At the same time, however, we continued to keep our eyes on the projects in India, and this has allowed me to continue to go there from time to time.

Over the last twenty years, I’ve been lucky to work with schools across countries, hundreds of teachers, and thousands of children. Although I’ve described my focus in many ways over the years, my constant has been exploring how children can use technology (especially programming) as a medium for creative expression. That’s why so many of the activities I design lie at the intersection of technology and art: they aim to open spaces for expression.

For this same reason, the term I feel most comfortable with when explaining what I do is "Technologies for Creative Learning". It’s not widely used academically and is far less popular than the terms mentioned earlier.

But what are these technologies? I define them as technological tools and environments (physical or digital) designed to foster exploration, creativity, and personal expression in learning contexts, promoting active knowledge construction through manipulation and collaboration. Examples aligned with this philosophy include Scratch, OctoStudio, micro:bit, or Makey Makey. But certainly, when designing learning experiences, methodologies must always come before technological tools, and pedagogical knowledge before technical knowledge. The advantage of the tools I have mentioned is that they are already designed specifically to favour certain pedagogical approaches that promote imagination, experimentation and collaboration.

Another constant throughout these two decades has been my participation in the Raimon Panikkar Seminar on Intercultural Thought at the University of Girona, founded in 2008. The seminar is a space of studium, where we study texts from the great traditions of wisdom and contemporary thought, engaging with philosophy and spirituality through an intercultural lens. This might seem unrelated to everything else, but it was precisely through this seminar that I came to realize how the philosophy behind Papert’s Constructionism and my own vision of technologies for creative learning are deeply intertwined with the ancient Greek concept of tekhne (τέχνη).

Tekhne meant much more than modern "technology." It referred to practical skill and knowledge applied to produce something. It included technical, aesthetic, and ethical dimensions. In my view, technologies for creative learning also blend technical knowledge with creativity and practical ability to solve problems, express ideas, and imagine new worlds. From this philosophical perspective, technologies for creative learning are a vehicle (among many others) for poiesis (ποίησις), the process of bringing something into being.

For the Greeks, tekhne was not just a mechanical rule set, but an art form requiring inspiration and imagination. It was a dialogue between hand, mind, and heart. This aligns with thinkers like Resnick, who seek ways to go beyond passive knowledge acquisition and foster invention, collaboration, and free exploration. When children create a collaborative story with Scratch, building worlds from their imagination, they engage in a practice resonating with the spirit of tekhné as "creative knowing".

Tekhne also involved a connection with human and cultural values —acts of making had personal and communal significance. Likewise, when used with this perspective, technologies for creative learning can help create meaning, explore identities, and strengthen cultural values. This echoes many principles of today’s Maker Movement.

In this spirit, the most recent milestone of UdiGitalEdu came in 2020 with the creation of the Tekhne Chair for Technology, Thought, and Creative Learning, aimed at bringing these ideas practically into schools in Salt, a town of rich cultural diversity but significant poverty.

By sharing this personal journey, I want to suggest that technologies for creative learning, when used with a sound pedagogical approach, can embody a modern version of tekhne by combining technical skill with creativity, cultural meaning, and human impact —embracing a holistic vision that unites knowing and doing. This is a very optimistic view of technology, of course. Most of our use of it deviates far from this vision. That’s precisely why educating for its use is so important.

Jordi Pigem wisely warns that Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can often become Technologies of Collective Idiocy. In Angels i robots [3], he writes: «Technology marvelously multiplies our possibilities, but it often instrumentalizes our direct experience and seduces us again and again to stop being fully present. Technology used consciously as an instrument is indeed useful; but in a hyper-technological society, the dominant trend is for humans to become cogs serving technological efficiency». He adds, bluntly: «Technologies should make life easier without impoverishing it existentially. But the technocratic paradigm, by its nature, is incompatible with human interiority and sustainability».

Oxford University Press's word of the year for 2024 was "brain rot" —a term referring to the compulsive and addictive consumption of low-quality, mentally unstimulating content through endless scrolling on digital platforms. Raimon Panikkar described the great modern epidemic as banality [4]. And it’s hard to deny: our use of digital technology often distances us from our inner world, trading depth and reflection for triviality and superficiality.

La pregunta òbvia és com ho fem, doncs, per aconseguir que les persones facin un ús creatiu, crític, i col·laboratiu de les tecnologies. Un ús que les connecti amb la seva interioritat i amb la seva imaginació. La resposta també sembla òbvia, tot i que no és gens senzill fer-ho: a través de l’educació. És evident que les mateixes eines poden ser utilitzades per a la imaginació o per a la distracció, depenent de l’ús que en fem i del marc pedagògic. Cal pensar, doncs, com eduquem per promoure’n un bon ús.

So the obvious question is: how can we ensure that people use technology in creative, critical, and collaborative ways —ways that connect them to their inner world and to their imagination? The answer is also clear, though not simple: through education. The same tools can serve imagination or distraction, depending on how —and why— they are used. We must reflect seriously on how we educate for meaningful and conscious use.

This is what I’ve dedicated the past twenty years to: imagining ways to use technology in learning contexts that enable us to create, think, imagine, connect, empathize... ways that reinforce what makes us human. I have focused especially on programming and how it helps us express ourselves creatively and imagine. But there are many other avenues to explore.

Writing these lines in 2025, a very valid question is whether learning to code still makes sense now that Artificial Intelligence can write code quite well. At the Tekhné Chair, we believe it absolutely does. Learning to code is still essential —not just to create software, but to understand and master the tools shaping our society. Programming is much more than a technical skill: it is a language of creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. It helps us understand how technology works and become active creators, not just passive consumers. Teaching children to program means nurturing curiosity and preparing them to use technology as a tool for expression, empowerment, and social transformation. It reminds me of Gianni Rodari, who, at the end of his preface to The Grammar of Fantasy [5], reflected on the value of teaching storytelling techniques: “Not so that everyone becomes an artist, but so that no one becomes a slave.” Likewise: not so that everyone becomes a programmer, but so that no one becomes a slave. Or put differently, in this technocratic world we live in: either you program, or you will be programmed.

[1] Resnick, M. (1994). Turtles, termites, and traffic jams: Explorations in massively parallel microworlds. MIT Press.

[2] Papert, S. (1980). Mindstorms: Children, computers, and powerful ideas. Basic Books.

[3] Pigem, J. (2017). Àngels i robots: La interioritat humana en la societat hipertecnològica. Viena Edicions.

[4] Panikkar, R. (2006). La interculturalitat comença quan no creiem ser el centre del món. Valors, 3(26), 12-17.

[5] Rodari, G. (2016). Gramàtica de la fantasia: Introducció a l'art d'inventar històries (T. Duran, Trad.). LaButxaca. (Obra original publicada el 1973)

Images generated with Midjourney 6.1

(trained with my own drawings)