Alice (software)

Alice

Basic animation of an ice skater
Original author(s) Carnegie Mellon University
Initial release 1999
Stable release 2.2 / September 10, 2010; 16 months ago (2010-09-10)
Written in Java
Type Educational
License

2.0 - Original BSD[1]

2.2 and later - proprietary, closed source[2][3]
Website www.alice.org

Alice is a freeware object-oriented educational programming language with an integrated development environment (IDE). Later versions are implemented in Java. Alice uses a drag and drop environment to create computer animations using 3D models. The software was developed first at University of Virginia, then Carnegie Mellon (from 1997), by a research group led by the late Randy Pausch. Alice was developed to address three core problems in educational programming:[4]

  1. Most programming languages are designed to be usable for "production code" and thus introduce additional complexity. Alice is designed solely to teach programming theory without the complex semantics of production languages such as C++. Users can place objects from Alice's gallery into the virtual world that they have imagined, and then they can program by dragging and dropping tiles that represent logical structures. Additionally, the user can manipulate Alice's camera and lighting to make further enhancements. Alice can be used for 3D user interfaces.
  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. Alice is designed to appeal to specific subpopulations not normally exposed to computer programming, such as female students of middle school age, by encouraging storytelling, unlike most other programming languages which are designed for computation. Alice is also used at many colleges and universities in Introduction to Programming courses.

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 rose from C to B, and retention rose from 47% to 88%.[5]

A variant of Alice 2.0 called Storytelling Alice was created by Caitlin Kelleher for her PhD dissertation. It includes 3 main differences:[6]

  1. High-level animations that enable users to program social interactions between characters.
  2. A story-based tutorial that introduces users to programming through building a story.
  3. A gallery of 3D characters and scenery with custom animations designed to spark story ideas.

It appeared to increase interest (42% increase in programming time and over 3x as many students doing additional work as Generic Alice) without any drop off in basic programming tasks acquired.[6] The next version of Storytelling Alice is known as Looking Glass, and is being developed at Washington University in St. Louis.[7] Alice 3.0 is being underwritten by Electronic Arts and will utilize character models from The Sims 2.[8] In fall 2008, there was an alpha test, which was said to be followed by the beta test in spring 2009.[9] The full release was planned for Summer 2009 [10] however Alice3 is still in beta testing as of December 2011 [11]. Further Sun Microsystems will assist in globalizing Alice.[12]

The current release of Alice, version 2.2, runs on Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. The older Alice version 2.0 is available for Linux platforms. The planned Alice 3.0 version is in beta, 3.0.3.2.0 [13] and available for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

See also

References

  1. ^ http://www.alice.org/index.php?page=downloads/download_alice
  2. ^ http://www.alice.org/index.php?page=downloads/download_alice2.2
  3. ^ http://www.alice.org/community/showthread.php?p=6740#post6740
  4. ^ What is Alice?
  5. ^ M. Moskal, D. Lurie, and S. Cooper, Evaluating the Effectiveness of a New Instructional Approach. In Proceedings of 2004 SIGCSE Conference, (Norfolk, VA).
  6. ^ a b Storytelling Alice About page
  7. ^ Looking Glass research overview
  8. ^ Alice Press Release - 03/10/06
  9. ^ A Preview of Alice 3.0
  10. ^ Alice 3.0 Progress Report
  11. ^ [1]
  12. ^ Sun collaboration
  13. ^ [2]
  • 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 978-0-321-47515-2
  • Motivating Programming: using storytelling to make computer programming attractive to middle school girls [3]
  • Virtual World Design and Creation for Teens; Charles R. Hardnett; Course Technologies PTR, 2009; ISBN 1-59863-850-5, ISBN 978-1-59863-850-9

External links

Academics
Branch Campuses
Student life
Research
People
Projects and legacies
Alice • Andrew Project • BLISS • CMMI • Mach • 3M computer