Alice (software)

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Alice (software), is a freeware introductory object-oriented programming software produced by Carnegie-Mellon, an educational programming language. Alice uses a drag and drop environment to create computer animations. The programming language is an attempt to address 3 core problems in educational programming:^[1]

1. Most programming languages are designed to be usable for "production code" thus introducing additional complexity. Alice is designed solely to teach programming.
2. Alice is conjoined with its IDE. There is no syntax to remember. However it supports the full object-oriented, event driven model of programming.
3. Most programming languages are designed around computation, whereas Alice is designed around "storytelling" and thus has greater appeal to female students. ^{[citation needed]}

In a controlled studies at Ithaca College and St Joseph's university looking at students with no prior programming experience taking the first computer science course the average grade went from a C to a B and the retention went from 47% to 88%.^[2]

Alice 3.0 is being underwritten by Electronic Arts and will utilize the character models from the The Sims 2.^[3]

[edit] See also

• AgentSheets
• EToys
• Logo
• Squeak

[edit] References

1. ^ http://www.alice.org/whatIsAlice.htm
2. ^ M. Moskal, D. Lurie, and S. Cooper, Evaluating the Effectiveness of a New Instructional Approach. In Proceedings of 2004 SIGCSE Conference, (Norfolk, VA).
3. ^ http://www.alice.org/simsannounce.html

• Learning to Program with Alice, Wanda P. Dann, Stephen Cooper, Randy Pausch: ISBN 0-13-187289-3
• An Introduction to Programming Using Alice, Charles W. Herbert ISBN 1-4188-3625-7
• Alice 2.0: Introductory Concepts and Techniques; Gary B. Shelly, Thomas J. Cashman, Charles W. Herbert ISBN 1-4188-5934-6

[edit] External links

• [1] - Alice homepage
• [2] - old version of Alice (Alice 99)
• [3] - Stephen Cooper's research