Alice – Through the computer screen
Alice is a 3D environment for easily creating animations using drag and drop tiles, where instructions correspond to standard programming statements. Students focus on understanding concepts behind what they are doing rather than memorizing syntax or debugging typos.
Alice is a free program developed by MIT in order to encourage beginning programming students to get past the initial learning curve of programming and develop an interest in the possibilities programming can open up instead of getting stuck on baby steps. Alice was developed to be used by students in high school and college but has been used with children as young as 10. Storytelling Alice is a version that was developed for middle school students, to appeal especially to girls and encourage them to consider a career in computers.
I haven’t worked a lot with Alice yet, but I showed it to my 8 year old and 10 year old and they not only thought it was incredibly cool but quickly picked up how to use it on their own. (Hey, what are kids for if not convenient experimental subjects? 🙂 ). I am also planning a 3 week course this summer for middle school girls to teach them Alice and GameMaker, another drag and drop programming tool specifically for creating games.
Anyone have any tips on teaching these tools? Got any student samples you want to share?
Elisa teaches online professional development courses for teachers at teachertechtraining.com.
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Tags: alice, MIT software, open source, programming for kids, programming IDE, Software for Kids, storytelling alice
A passion for creating educational multimedia, especially digital games. Fascinated by the challenge of integrating gameplay mechanics with educational content to create a true intrinsic learning experience. Interested in technology and special ed, digital storytelling, and science education. Closet science geek (shhh!!!)