Learning to Program with Alice Stevee Cooper scoopersju.edu

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Learning to Program with AliceStevee Cooper
scooper_at_sju.edu

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Research Group

• Stephen Cooper, Saint Joseph's University
• Wanda Dann, Ithaca College
• Randy Pausch and Alice team at Carnegie Mellon
  University
• National Science Foundation grants (CCLI, ATE)

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Introductions

• Who are you?
• Why are you taking this workshop?
• Have you used Alice before?
• Have you taught with Alice before?

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Workshop Objectives

• Why Alice?
• Dealing with Facts
• Approach with Alice
• Effectiveness
• Demonstration and Hands-on "How To"
• Use the Alice interface
• Program with Alice
• Teaching tips
• Gleaned from lab/classroom experiences

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Dealing with the Facts

• OOP in introductory programming courses
• Fundamental concepts still needed
• Sequence, decision-making, repetition, functions,
  parameters
• OOP concepts now added
• Classes, objects, methods, inheritance
• The time available in a semester has not
  changed but the conceptual complexity has
  increased

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Other Issues

• Decreasing enrollment in CS CIS programs
  nationwide
• 60 from 2000-present
• Dropout rate in first year
• Typically 30 50
• Percentage of women has decreased

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The Shrinking CS pool
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The Shrinking CS pool
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The way we teach CS1 has not really changed in
the last 25 years.Alice is about keeping
America economically competitive.And about
eighteen year-olds not crying themselves to
sleep.
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The Alice Software

• A 3D interactive animation environment
• A tool for teaching fundamental programming
  concepts
• object oriented
• System developed at Carnegie Mellon

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Alice is about focusing on what really matters
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The Alice Approach

• Uses 3D graphics to engage students
• Has a smart drag-and-drop editor that prevents
  syntax errors
• Appeals to wide audience
• Storytelling
• (young women, minority students)
• Interactive computer games
• (young men)
• Not threatening Alice builds students confidence

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Key Alice Features

• Makes objects something students can see and
  relate to
• Has a java syntax mode to ease the transition to
  C/Java/VB.net

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Over 700 free objects in the gallery
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Textbook support materials
www.alice.org www.aliceprogramming.net
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Textbook Features

• Emphasizes design using storyboards
• Supports varying instructional approaches
• objects-early
• objects-first"
• Allows an (optional) early introduction to
  events
• Color screen captures illustrate
  step-by-step construction of programs

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Schools using Alice 2004-2005

• Bucknell University
• California Lutheran University
• California State University at Humboldt
• Camden County College
• Carnegie Mellon University
• Clemson University
• Colorado School of Mines
• Community College of Philadelphia
• Cornell University
• Duke University
• Georgetown College
• Haverford College
• Ithaca College
• Manor College

• Mississippi Valley State University
• Plymouth State University
• Saint Edwards University
• Saint Joseph's University
• Saint Lawrence College
• San Diego State University
• Sierra Nevada College
• Southwestern University
• Tompkins Cortland Community College
• University of Colorado
• University of Illinois
• University of Mississippi
• Virginia Tech
• And several high schools

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Schools using Alice fall 2005

• 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
• San Diego State University
• Saint Joseph's University
• Saint Bonaventure University
• SUNY Canton
• SUNY Tompkins Cortland CC
• Temple University
• Tufts University
• University of Colorado Boulder
• University of Mississippi

• Amarillo College
• Anne Arundel CC
• Arizona State University West
• 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
• Immaculata University

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The Punch Line

• Alice works
• And we can prove it

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Alice helps at-risk CS majors
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Alice helps at-risk CS majors
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How Alice is being used

• In pre-CS1
• course for majors and students considering a CS
  major
• As conceptual introduction in CS1
• Introduction to programming course
• non-majors
• attract students to become CS majors
• Computer literacy
• problem-solving component
• Pre-AP in high schools

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Demo Hands-On Work

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Using Alice

• Setting up a world
• Scene editor
• Galleries
• Quad view
• Methods popup menu
• Learning to set up an initial world has a
  learning curve play with the scene editor!

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Classes and Objects

• In Alice, each 3D model is a class
• Adding an object to the world instantiates the
  object

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Object Subparts

• Objects may be composed of subparts

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3D

• A 3D object has
• 3 dimensions
• 6 degrees of freedom (directions of movement)

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Creating a program

• Problem statement (animation scenario)
• After traveling through space, a robot-manned
  craft has just made a breathless landing on the
  surface of a moon. The robot has already climbed
  out of the lunar Lander and has set up a camera
  so earthbound scientists at the NASA center in
  Houston can view this historic event. Through the
  camera (the scene in our world), we can see the
  robot, the lunar Lander and some nearby rock
  formations. Suddenly an alien peeks out from
  behind a rock and looks at the robot. The robot
  is surprised and rotates its head all the way
  around. The robot walks over to take a closer
  look and the alien hides behind the rocks.
  Finally, the robot looks at the camera, signals
  danger, and says "Houston, we have a
  problem!"

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Design

• To create a design, we borrow the idea of
  storyboards from professional animators at
  Disney, Pixar, etc.

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Visual Storyboards
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Textual Storyboard
Do the following steps in order alien moves
up alien says "Slithy toves?" robot's
head turns around robot turns to look at
alien Do together robot walks
toward the alien alien moves down
robot's head turns to look at the camera
robot's head turns red (to signal danger)
robot says "Houston, we have a problem!"

Start with a visual storyboard and then develop
the textual storyboard to provide pseudocode -- a
detailed "to do list".
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Implementation

• Idea
• For the first program, demonstrate translating
  the storyboard into program code
• Demo

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Some fundamental programming concepts

• Sequence vs. Concurrency
• Do in order
• Do together
• Decisions
• Built-in functions
• Expressions
• If then else
• Repetition

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OOP

• World-level methods
• Stepwise refinement
• Class-level methods
• Parameters
• Inheritance
• Events interactive worlds

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Sharing ideas

• Open-ended projects
• Student Presentations
• Collaborative programming
• Dealing with advanced students