Alice

[HeavenAgain]

Recently i heard my computer science teacher saying something about the new program called Alice, and i heard a lot of high school are using this program as an introduction to prgramming, becuase it is easy to understand, and have some sort of connection to OOP.

what do you have to say about this? i personally think its a bit of wasting time for a grade 12 class to spend 2 monthish on this....

[Tony]

For grade 12? Are you serious? From the description

Quote:

Alice addresses the specific needs of the subpopulation of middle school girls

I think the decision to use it for a senior computer science class should be questioned.

At least it appears to be open source...

[Mazer]

I think I've seen a video about this... someone jump in and correct me if need be, but there was an example in which a figure skater was added to a scene and rotated? At least, that video was the first thing that jumped to my mind at "drag-and-drop" and "on-screen 3D virtual objects".

Didn't rizzix link it a while back?

EDIT: Anyways, yeah, not terribly impressed myself. I'd much rather hear about schools picking from the crapload of freely available and popular interpreted languages with support for messing with lists and stuff.

[rizzix]

Mazer: Yea I did.

Tony @ Fri Sep 07, 2007 9:01 pm wrote:

For grade 12? Are you serious? From the description

Quote:

Alice addresses the specific needs of the subpopulation of middle school girls

I think what they're trying to say here, is that Alice address the interest in both girls and guys. They conjecture that introductory CS classes are usually designed as just a guys thing.

[iluvchairs112]

as a girl, I'd like to say that I don't find Alice all that great. I haven't used it much but the year before I took computer science, they used it, and I used it a bit in my comp sci class just for fun.
at least with Turing you get the basics of programming; I learned that the first year in comp sci and it was useful
but I learned Java next and that was probably the best to learn
but yeah Alice doesn't really help out at all, unless you're going into gaming and need to figure out graphics and stuff

[HeavenAgain]

well, this is my 2nd week of using Alice, and what i noticed is

it lets you learn OOP without knowing
creating method for each object
and theres a perfence function which have java style syntax

other than those, it just let you be creative with some simple graphic

its great for introduction, but for grade 12, i think of it as a waste of time

i hope they wont do this to any grade 12s, ever again...........

[CodeMonkey2000]

Alice sounds just as bad a VB imo. What's wrong with Ruby as an introductory language?

Ps. I still haven't met a female who is interested in compsci.

[Tony]

CodeMonkey - you need to get out more

[jamonathin]

Tony @ Sun Sep 23, 2007 11:28 pm wrote:

CodeMonkey - you need to get out more

yeah tony, those chicks are straight up babes! But on a more serious note there are several, and i was quite surprised myself when i saw my class in first year. The ratio is a little more male in second year university, but those are just my classes.

[Mazer]

jamonathin @ Sun Sep 23, 2007 11:20 pm wrote:

Tony @ Sun Sep 23, 2007 11:28 pm wrote:

CodeMonkey - you need to get out more

yeah tony, those chicks are straight up babes! But on a more serious note there are several, and i was quite surprised myself when i saw my class in first year. The ratio is a little more male in second year university, but those are just my classes.

No, you see, the larger number of girls (hell, the larger number of anyone) you saw in first year was actually just a crapload of math and perhaps business students who are expected to take 60-140 (and of these, some need to take 60-141) as well. Female enrollment in CS is pretty ridiculously low.

[Nick]

all the chicks in CS usually take CS as a highschool course (which is still few) have fun and never touch CS again with a 50 foot pole...

[HeavenAgain]

Alice is not something just for the girls, but i guess, it can show that programming its not as boring and dull it sounds
and that might lead to more girls taking the course
but the point im trying to make here, is that teaching Alice for grade 12 class............ its just like teaching grade 12 how to do addition and subtraction again

[haskell]

Think objectively people. Objectively

If you wish to raise awareness, how do you do it? You give the people exactly what they were expecting/wanted. I bet quite a few people sign-up into CS in high school as a light course, and hope to maybe create a game or work with graphics or something with their code. If you give them that, more people will show up who like this. The higher volume of people will cause CS to become popular, and then they can go to the Haskell we all know and love.

What I mean, before someone starts using their deductive reasoning and getting the message ALL wrong, is that they are trying to get more people interested. I mean, we need more Computer Scientists and Engineers. And the best way, if the Armed Forces has taught us anything, to get people to sign up is with propaganda. So, you give then Alice, and watch them spread the word about how great the class is. Then you can get your real CS class .

[Zampano]

momop @ Mon Sep 24, 2007 6:28 pm wrote:

all the chicks in CS usually take CS as a highschool course (which is still few) have fun and never touch CS again with a 50 foot pole...

You said 'chicks' . . . You are badass!
*gives thumbs up*

I'd like to look at this deeper, as I expect my school might utilize Alice eventually.
I don't know why they would, as Turing is friendly to both male and female starters, but this is the same high school with Math Circus 1-5 hidden discreetly in the most obscure of directories: when such a level of madness is reached, anything can happen . . .

[iluvchairs112]

CodeMonkey2000 @ Sun Sep 23, 2007 10:55 pm wrote:

Alice sounds just as bad a VB imo. What's wrong with Ruby as an introductory language?

Ps. I still haven't met a female who is interested in compsci.

Hey CodeMonkey - meet me - a female - who is interested in compsci!

Although I am the only girl in my computer science class right now ... lol