NCTIES 2009- Alice Presentation Survey

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NCTIES 2009- Alice Presentation Survey

NCTIES-Why come to Alice-the Free, Fun, and Easy Way to Introduce Students to Programming

The "Alice-the Free, Fun, and Easy Way to Introduce Students to Programming will be on Thursday from 11:45am-12:30pm in Meeting Room 301A.

Here is a link to the presentation.

Here is a sample of what Alice can do.

Here is Owen, a 7th grade student, talking about an Alice game he created. (A permission form is on file for his interview to be on the Internet)



Description from the NCTIES program: Alice is a Free animation/programming software program donated by Carnegie Mellon University. It encourages students especially girls and minorities to learn programming in a fun way by creating animation and/or video games as they learn concepts. Studies show students using Alice continue and succeed in future programming classes. http://alice.org Bring laptop for hands-on demonstration. Elaine Witkowski, Archdale-Trinity Middle School Jill Elberson, Randleman Middle School Target Audience: Middle, High, K-12, Other, Universities are also teaching Alice as a pre-computer science class. Strand: Increasing Student Interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering, math)

ATMS Technology Club in Local Newspaper

The Archdale-Trinity News ran the front page article "ATMS Students Create Ideas In Animation" on May 22. The article talks about a guest speaker, Doctor Dobson, who created the game, Snood, how the students helped create the NCAECT presentation (see earlier blog entries for student videos), and how I will be going to Duke University during the summer to learn more about Alice, the object-oriented free software program for an animation and video game introduction to programming, at the "Adventures in Alice" workshop sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

What was really cool happened after the article went to press. I found out that a representative of DPI, Department of Public Instruction, liked what he saw and will be attending the Duke University workshop to see if there is a way to add a middle school pre-programming class to the NC curriculum.

NCAECT 2008 Presentation

Thirty seven teachers attended our NCAECT "Alice- the Free, Fun & Easy Way to Introduce Students to Programming" class. As Jill Nelson and I presented the teachers seemed enthusiastic and interested in Alice and asked a lot of good questions. Carnegie Mellon donated Alice, animation/video game software, free of charge and it can be download at http://www.alice.org/.

Everyone enjoyed the Prentice Hall book give away. They generously donated 4 Alice text books door prizes.

One question that was discussed was how the students could show their work on the Internet. Alice animation will play on computers that have downloaded Alice. Our student videos were created by the students playing their Alice animations on a Smartboard and using the record feature which records their Alice videos as a avi format. Soon to be released Alice 2.2 will have a record feature built into it. If you can't wait that long I just read an interesting blog at http://segatech.us/ (March 19, 2008) that tells about free online tools for transforming files. I haven't tried them yet but they are located at Media Convert and Zamzar.

Miss Witkowski talks about "Girls and Computers"


Miss Nelson talks about "How Easy Alice is To Learn Programming"

Creating in a new world

Aaron is creating a new world using animation.



(Note- Parental release is on file allowing Aaron to share his creativity)

Aaron may also be creating in a new world when he graduates from college in 2016. I read Marc Prensky's article "Programming: The New Literacy" in February's Edutopia magazine and agreed with his premise that in the near future literate adults will need to know how to program to some degree.

He provides many examples supporting his claim. One of his most compelling examples was when he explained that back in the Middle Ages when there were only a few literate people who knew how to read people had to hire people to write letters for them and to read letter to them. Today many people hire Geek Squads to install and show them how to use their new electronic devices.

I have read several articles which point to an increased emphasis on programming in the future. The video game industry made more money than the motion picture industry last year. Homeland Security and the Armed Forces are using video games to train their employees/soldiers. The iphone's success and the placement of electronics in our cars and homes all signal a need to understand a minimal amount of programming.

The free Alice software donated by Carnegie Mellon University is a fun and easy way to start you journey into the programming world.

Both Girls and Boys Enjoy Alice Software

What's really great about Alice software is its flexibility. There are so many templates that both girls and boys can find items of interest. While most boys gravitate toward the "war" game scenario, most girls like the "non-violent" games. Pamella created a race car game and spent a lot of time creating a realistic setting for it. (A parent release form is on file giving permission for Pamella to describe her game.)

Student Testimonial

I could talk all day about how great Alice is but I think the message is stronger coming from students. The students filmed each other using a flip camera. Look for more testimonials in upcoming blogs.

FYI: Parents signed release forms allowing their children to tell you how much they like Alice.