Thanks for the links Margaret and Paul :-)<br><br>Amongst a suite of other programming languages, we are now using it at Westall SC and installed it on all the college computers. Alice comes with a good built-in tutorial that gets students started. With the Alice <font size="-1">GUI tools and some simple Python scripting, they can easily move images around a screen to create a 3D story.</font> Not sure what bugs you have running it over the network Diana (bandwidth?). I have not seen it crash, perhaps because we installed it locally.<br>
<br>Another cool Python tool we loaded onto the image is <font size="-1">Ren'Py that</font><font size="-1"> supports the creation of visual novels</font>. Odly enough, some of the boys related to this from their use of Adventure Quest, an online game. <br>
It is available with some sample games and an interactive tutorial from<font size="-1"> <a href="http://RenPy.org">http://RenPy.org</a></font><br><br>These seem to be very engaging tools for my middle school students. I have not done an extensive literature review but from what I have read so far, presenting programming in a storytelling context is a great way to engage and motivate girls. Lindy McKeown mentioned something along this line at the 2008 VITTA conference keynote address.<br>
<br>Regards Roland<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 07/03/2008, <b class="gmail_sendername">Dr Paul Chandler</b> <<a href="mailto:paul.chandler@yvg.vic.edu.au">paul.chandler@yvg.vic.edu.au</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<br> Alice is part of our year 9 "core" course, and Yarra Valley Grammar. I<br> rather like it :-)<br> <br> Anyone else using it?<br> <br><br> -----Original Message-----<br> From: <a href="mailto:yr7-10it-bounces@edulists.com.au">yr7-10it-bounces@edulists.com.au</a><br>
[mailto:<a href="mailto:yr7-10it-bounces@edulists.com.au">yr7-10it-bounces@edulists.com.au</a>] On Behalf Of Margaret Lawson<br> Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2008 10:08 PM<br> To: Year 7 - 10 Information Technology Teachers' Mailing List<br>
Subject: [Yr7-10it] Alice Programming (and Randy)<br> <br> Alice is "an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to<br> create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or<br> a video to share on the web. Alice is a freely available teaching tool<br>
designed to be a student's first exposure to object-oriented<br> programming. It allows students to learn fundamental programming<br> concepts in the context of creating animated movies and simple video<br> games. In Alice, 3-D objects (e.g., people, animals, and vehicles)<br>
populate a virtual world and students create a program to animate the<br> objects."<br> <br> It is a FREE programming package with lots of FREE resources for<br> teachers ...<br> <br> Randy Pausch is the creator (or one of the creators) of "Alice" software<br>
project, and ... he is dying from Pancreatic Cancer.<br> He delivered his last public Lecture at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)<br> in Pittsburgh ( dubbed the "Last Lecture") called "Really Achieving Your<br>
Childhood Dreams". I managed to catch him on Oprah the other week (I<br> know, I know) and thought It would be worthwhile to push the details<br> onto the lists.<br> <br> If you teach programming, it is well worthwhile to become familiar with<br>
Alice. There are some great resources out there, suggested syllabus and<br> online communities that use the environment as an introduction to<br> programming. As for Randy, hunt up his "last lecture" (links from his<br>
site). It is worthwhile listening to and could even be good to show at<br> school to some of the older kids.<br> <br> Links:<br> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Pausch">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Pausch</a><br>
<a href="http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/">http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/</a><br> <a href="http://www.alice.org/">http://www.alice.org/</a><br> <br> <br> enjoy!<br> <br> Margaret<br> (on leave from St. Michael's Grammar School)<br>
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</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Roland Gesthuizen - ICT Coordinator - Westall Secondary College<br><a href="http://www.westallsc.vic.edu.au">http://www.westallsc.vic.edu.au</a><br><br>"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has." --Margaret Mead