Programming Software from Carnegie Mellon Began at University of Virginia under the leadership of Dr. Randy Pausch (“The Last Lecture”)

Features 3-D Programming Tutorial Drag and Drop interface Object oriented programming Java based Can be shared on the web as a video

Vocabulary Worlds Object Gallery Methods Events More like that of traditional programming such as C++

Current Versions 2.2 for Mac, Windows Storytelling Alice for Windows only 3.0 Beta version for Mac, Windows and Linux

Alice and Scratch Compared Scratch POSITIVES Scratch is an easy place to start because * There are good beginners tutorials * There are many, many (almost 200,000) Scratch projects online. Most of them are games that your student can play * It's pure drag-and-drop programming NEGATIVES * Scratch does not teach programming with functions. * However, if you know Smalltalk, you can download the source code for Scratch and write your own Scratch functions ADDITIONAL INFORMATION * Scratch is based on the language Squeak, which is based on the language Smalltalk. * The Scratch team is based at MIT. * Scratch was designed for elementary school children Alice POSITIVES Alice is a good second step after your child has learned Scratch. You can also start a child (beginning around age 7) on Alice and skip Scratch. * It has most features of a real programming language, including functions * The large number of graphics that come with Alice means you can make professional looking "movies" very quickly * It is easy to add your own sounds * Alice is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux NEGATIVES * There is no widely known website where you can share Alice projects * There are few beginners tutorials * Does not teach text based programming ADDITIONAL INFORMATION * Alice is based on Java. * The Alice team is based at Carnegie Mellon University.

Resources I enjoy explaining that unlike in Scratch where you paint two dimensional sprites, here you model three-dimensional objects. Dave Briccetti’s Blog The "best, first programming language" discussion has continued among professors and practitioners and will probably continue for years to come. Should we teach one of the following programming pedagogies: declarative first, imperative first, objects first, or functional first? Do we need a new beginning programming language? My answer is "yes", and the more programming languages and tools we have to introduce programming to kids, adults and everyone else, the better. David Intersimone first programming language The general observation is that students find Scratch to be very accessible, and can do many cool things very quickly. The downside is that they will hit the limits of Scratch relatively soon. Alice has a richer set of capabilities but that students need a lot more initial support and training to fully utilize its capabilities. Alice is more java-like than scratch, so makes an easier transition. We've found it much harder to program in Alice, though, in part from the lack of documentation, but also from limitations resulting from using a 3D world (for example, one cannot create new 3D models in Alice, but must use the provided ones or import them from 3rd-party programs).

Text

Download Site /