Memorial for Robert Taylor Will Be Held This Saturday | Teachers College Columbia University

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Memorial for Robert Taylor Will Be Held This Saturday

TC's Department of Math, Science & Technology is holding a memorial service this Saturday, January 11, 2014, at 2 PM for the late faculty member Robert Taylor, (Ed. D. ’70). The service will be held at Riverside Church. 

Taylor, who retired from TC in 2009 as Associate Professor of Computing and Education, was a digital pioneer who founded TC’s Computing in Education Program in 1976 – one of the first such graduate programs in the world. He passed away in October 2013.

Taylor edited the influential 1980 volume The Computer in the School: Tutor, Tool, Tutee and invented and applied a structured language to teach programming (FPL, or First Programming Language). His invited testimony before a Senate subcommittee led by then-Senator Al Gore played a significant part in shaping Gore’s proposed 1984 National Educational Software Act, which was designed to encourage development of high-equality interactive educational software.

Taylor was also a gifted amateur singer and artist who sketched many people at TC, including himself.

Published Monday, Jan. 6, 2014

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