June 2008 — News
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Alice Offers Gentler Intro to Programming
Alice uses the same terminology that Java uses, he explained, such as methods, if statements, loops, functions, and data types. That gives new Java students a heads-up as well. "My Alice programmers ... already know the lingo," Harrison said. "They already know what a loop is. They already know what an if statement is. Now, it's just, 'I remember doing that in Alice. How do I do it in Java to get the same effect?' "
"There's definitely some crossover," Harrison said. "It's just a question of how much."
He said he hopes that Alice will help address some of the disparities he sees in his computer programming classes--disparities that are echoed in study after study on computer science students in the United States. One, not enough students are interested in programming, Harrison said, and, two, those that are tend to be white males. And even those students, studies show, often lose interest in college.
But Alice, Harrison said, "appeals to everyone.... There are the typical 'guy' kinds of things in there, so you can have explosions, fires, buildings blowing up, and all that kind of ... action stuff. But there's also an awful lot of things that appeal to girls." He cited tortoise-and-hare races and a "dragon taxi service" in which the programming goal is to rescue a princess.
Alice may also help pull a wider variety of students into programming classes. While his C++ classes used to be almost entirely white males, Harrison said, his Alice class is perhaps a third girls and includes a handful of African-American students. "I'm hoping that, as the word gets out, I get some of these students when they're younger," Harrison said. Some of this year's tenth and eleventh graders have already told him, he said, "Hey, you'll see me again next year. I've signed up for AP Computer Science." In fact, he's seen a 50 percent increase this year in his introductory programming class, to 45 students, up from 30 or so the last year that C++ was taught.
The move to Alice was triggered when the district reevaluated its math program several years ago. Virginia requires three math credits for high school graduation; that often meant Algebra II for a student's third year--a steep challenge for many. "We were looking for something that would satisfy the third math credit for those students," Harrison explained, "as well as provide us a kind of a springboard for our more capable students to get them interested in programming. I think Alice provides that."
Alice has turned up some surprises, as some students who have struggled with traditional math prove to be highly talented in Alice. Harrison cited a music student last year who turned out to be one of his best programming students, partly because Alice includes the ability to incorporate music.
To develop course materials for teaching Alice, Harrison's district worked with Wanda Dann and Stephen Cooper, authors with Pausch of a textbook on Alice, Learning to Program with Alice.
