The idea of language boxes comes, in particular, from applications developed by Mike Sharples in the 1970s and 1980s. (See: Sharples M (1985) Cognition, Computers and Creative Writing. Chichester: Ellis Horwood).

The general idea is that computers enable us to construct more dynamic models of how language is used at the level of meaning as well as syntax and grammar. Whether or not playing with computers helps to develop anyone's understanding of language is probably moot although I guess we all accept that playing with language can make you a better writer, a better speaker, perhaps a better thinker.

This website is an exploration of useful pedagogical links between computers, reading and writing.

One part of this exploration is the development of activities and materials for use by learners at a range of levels. The resources we are collecting here have one major characteristic in common - they are concerned with the structure of language forms (stories, conversations etc.) as much as, if not more than, their meaning.

One of the best examples is Boxes, constructed by Mike Sharples  (the version on this site is done in Logo). It has high affordance - that is it provides a wide and deep range of tools for experimenting with language forms (generally speaking, a low affordance activity only allows you to do one or two things - e.g. most classroom worksheets have low affordance).

Hopefully, we have gathered into one place some examples of language tools that take the use of computers in language education into some novel aspects of language work, tools for asking questions about language, investigating how it works and modelling how people use it. As to what works at what age or level is a matter of experiment and evaluation.

We are also interested in communication, and particularly how everyday communication is facilitated or constrained by the use of always on, networked, mobile ICTs. But that aspect of our interest is covered in a separate site.

In some sense, all the activities in this website are examples of rule-based creativity, an idea which some might say is an oxymoron but in fact to us represents an important truth about creativity. We make beautiful things by following rules - perhaps the Haiku is emblematic of this principle and it is no accident that a haiku generator was one of the first logo programs ever written (ref).