Using the Alice 3D Environment to Teach Multimedia Programming Chris Stein BMCC Jody Culkin BMCC CUNY IT Conference Dec. 06

NSF Grant “Improving Student Learning” NSF CCLI A&I Grant targeting the core courses in the Multimedia Programming track MMP 220 Multimedia Programming –Goal: Improve student understanding of basic programming and object-oriented concepts.

A Brief History of Alice Originated at University of Virginia Developed in its current state by Randy Pausch at Carnegie Mellon University Currently used at over 80 educational institutions

Institutions using Alice Amarillo College Anne Arundel CC Arizona State University West Belmont Abbey College Beloit College BGSU at Firelands BYU Idaho California State University – Sacramento Carnegie Mellon University Clark College Camden County College College of Charleston Columbia College Community College of Philadelphia Duke University Eastern Michigan University Fort Lewis College Haverford College Illinois State University San Diego State University Saint Joseph's University Saint Bonaventure University SUNY: Canton SUNY: Tompkins Cortland CC Temple University The College of New Jersey Tufts University University of Colorado – Boulder University of Mississippi University of Missouri – KC University of Montana McMaster University University of Texas at Austin Virginia Tech Virginia Western CC Wittenberg University Wm Rainey Harper College And many high schools Immaculata University Inver Hills Community College ITESM, Mexico Ithaca College La Roche College Lenoir Rhyne College Luzerne County CC Manor College Modesto Junior College Monmouth University New Hampshire CTC-Laconia New Mexico State University- Alamogor Northwestern College Pennsylvania State University Red Rocks CC Rowan University Rutgers University – Camden Campus

The Multimedia Programming Course Goals of the course –Learn to program in an object-oriented language –Integrate multimedia data types –Create interactive projects How Alice is used –Learn basic programming concepts –Learn object-oriented concepts –Introduce events and interactivity

The Multimedia Programming Course (cont.) Assignments in Alice –Text: Learning to Program with Alice Wanda Dann, Stephen Cooper, and Randy Pausch Midterm Project using Alice –Open-ended project graded with a rubric Transition to Flash ActionScript Final Project using Flash ActionScript

Examples of Student Work

Demo of the Alice IDE

Pros of Teaching with Alice No big syntax issues It’s easy to jump right in It’s a free download The students understand OO concepts better It allows students to focus more on storytelling and ideas for their projects

Cons of Teaching with Alice Alice can make programming deceptively easy Creating if statements and using Alice’s math functions and relational operator is difficult Animation is not like other platforms Moving from 3D space of Alice to the 2D space of Flash can be difficult The IDE can be buggy and unstable

Conclusion Balancing the advantages and disadvantages is an ongoing process Tailoring Alice to fit your needs For more information about Alice – (official site) –