Someone once said “He (sic) who ignores history is condemned to repeat it”. Looking at the history of technology-enhanced learning, it does seem as if there is more than a grain of truth in this aphorism—it sometimes seems as if each new wave of technological advance is treated rather as if it is the first, and that nothing much has been learned by the extensive research and development in the field that has taken place over the last half-century.

Part of that history is technological, part pedagogical and part—perhaps a neglected part—personal. In this new paper, Wally Feurzeig discusses his seminal role in the design and implementation of Logo, surely the most important, broadly researched, influential and widely misunderstood pieces of software in the historical record. Wally outlines his role in the project, and points to some of the debates and discussions that gave birth to the ‘final’ product—which is, of course, still being enhanced and reborn in various guises today.

Although this paper is not a research paper in the accepted sense, it adds to our understanding of how research takes place, and how packaged ideas and artefacts contain the traces of the contested terrain on which they were developed. And, as the reader will see, many—perhaps most—of that terrain is as contested now as it was 40 years ago.