James Kelley

Start Programming with Alice: Third Edition Version 2.4 James Kelley Third edition

Alice is a new concept in learning programming. It puts the user into a world of 3D programming but removes many of the pitfalls that discourage beginner programmers. Free to download, easy to use, and best of all FREE! Developed by Carnagie Mellon to interest younger students, young women in particular, in programming as a career. Used in K-12 and the College/University level to teach beginning programmers and to introduce the world of 3D programming. Why study Alice? Alice is not a "real world" programming language. Applications for businesses are not written in Alice. The real purpose is to teach the principles of programming without the often frustrating syntax errors. It was designed to be FUN! Results may not be like Pixar but with a little effort, the beginner can produce some dramatic videos quickly. In Alice, the programmer creates a world and then populates the world with various objects. If the movie takes place in the city, the world would be populated with buildings, streets, signs, people, vehicles, etc.. The programmer automates these objects to make them perform various actions that would be done by a similar object in the real world. For Example: make a soldier march, a skater skate across a pond, jump and twirl, a space ship take off and many other actions for various objects. Learn to use Alice by telling a story. Compose a short story and then tell this story using Alice. There are examples of teachers using Alice to illustrate their courses. Alice may be used to teach a foreign language, or math, or science. The potential is endless. For some examples of how Alice is used in education there are videos on YouTube and information on various Alice web sites.