Transcript Using the Alice 3D Environment to Teach Multimedia Programming

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
Immaculata University
San Diego State University
Anne Arundel CC
Inver Hills Community College
Saint Joseph's University
Arizona State University West
ITESM, Mexico
Saint Bonaventure University
Belmont Abbey College
Ithaca College
SUNY: Canton
Beloit College
La Roche College
SUNY: Tompkins Cortland CC
BGSU at Firelands
Lenoir Rhyne College
Temple University
BYU Idaho
Luzerne County CC
The College of New Jersey
California State University –
Sacramento
Manor College
Modesto Junior College
Tufts University
Carnegie Mellon University
Clark College
Camden County College
College of Charleston
Columbia College
Community College of
Philadelphia
Monmouth University
New Hampshire CTC-Laconia
New Mexico State University-
Alamogor
Northwestern College
Pennsylvania State University
Duke University
Red Rocks CC
Eastern Michigan University
Rowan University
Fort Lewis College
Rutgers University – Camden
Haverford College
Illinois State University
Campus
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
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
– http://alice.org (official site)
– http://www.aliceprogramming.net