Alice (software)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Alice | |
|---|---|
 Basic animation of an ice skater |
|
| Design by | Carnegie Mellon University |
| Initial release | 1999 |
| Latest release | 2.0 / April 5, 2005 |
| Written in | Java |
| Genre | Educational |
| License | Original BSD |
| Website | http://www.alice.org |
Alice is a free open source[1] object-oriented educational programming language with an associated development environment (IDE). It is developed over Java. Alice uses a drag and drop environment to create computer animations using 3D models. The software is developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon, including Randy Pausch. Alice was developed to address three core problems in educational programming:[2]
- Most programming languages are designed to be usable for "production code" thus introducing additional complexity. Alice is designed solely to teach programming.
- Alice is conjoined with its IDE. There is no syntax to remember. However, it supports the full object-oriented, event driven model of programming.
- Alice is designed to appeal to specific subpopulations not normally exposed to computer programming, such as middle school students, by encouraging storytelling through a simple drag-and-drop interface.
In controlled studies at Ithaca College and Saint Joseph's University looking at students with no prior programming experience taking their first computer science course, the average grade went from a C to a B and the retention increased from 47% to 88%.[3]
Alice 3.0 is being underwritten by Electronic Arts and will utilize character models from The Sims 2.[4]. In fall 2008, there will be an alpha test, followed by the beta test in spring 2009 [5].
The current release of Alice, version 2.0, runs on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux platforms.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Alice uses an attribution required version of the BSD license [1]
- ^ What is Alice?
- ^ M. Moskal, D. Lurie, and S. Cooper, Evaluating the Effectiveness of a New Instructional Approach. In Proceedings of 2004 SIGCSE Conference, (Norfolk, VA).
- ^ Alice Press Release - 03/10/06
- ^ A Preview of Alice 3.0
- 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
- Starting Out with Alice: A Visual Introduction to Programming; Tony Gaddis; Pearson Addison Wesley, 2007; ISBN-13: 9780321475152
