AN INTRODUCTION TO ALICE PROGRAMMING AS A STEAM ENGAGEMENT TOOL: TUTORIAL KARINA ASSITERCCSC RM 2015 OCTOBER 1-2.

Outline Motivation Background What is Alice? Getting your feet wet:

Download Alice Opening Alice Opening and creating Projects Creating objects

References

Motivation Attracting under-represented groups into STEAM pipeline top priority

Even more important as population becomes increasingly diverse According to US censes, by 2044, more than half of all Americans are projected to belong to minority group.

General agreement: we must start early Elementary or middle school.

Strategies (see references) Numerous tools/environments Workshops, summer and after school programs aimed at both kids and K-12 teachers

What is Alice? 3D Programming environment Freely available teaching tool Designed to be a student’s first exposure to OOP Easy to create an animation for

Storytelling Playing an interactive game or video to share on the Web

Accessible to novices and still challenging for experienced users

Background Annual 1 day WIT SWE girl-scout event CS faculty teach 1 hour workshop (4 x )

This year, Alice Tremendous success, expressed in this parent’s email:

THANK YOU for the February 7th STEM event! Zoe loved the STEM event she took at Wentworth. … So far she has spent hours on ALICE and has eagerly shown her family all her Alice projects. I am thrilled with the knowledge and exposure it has provided to Zoe. I am also thankful for GS and Wentworth for hosting STEM events- please continue! Zoe is eagerly looking forward to the next STEM event so keep me on any distribution list for future events.

..and surveys, of

course.

Example – Quick Demo

Lets get started... THE FUN PART.

Downloading & Installing Go to www.alice.org Select Downloads/Alice 3 Select the download for your machine type. Once downloaded, find and select the Installer

Starting Alice Select Alice 3 startup icon

Welcome dialog box appears (Figure 1) Templates tab automatically selected.

Select a template (background for a scene) and hit ok

Code Editor appears (Figure 2) Selected template scene appears in upper left corner

Figure 1 – Welcome Dialog box

Figure 2 – Code Editor

Add objects Select Setup Scene (FIgure 1) Browse and select objects

Either click or drag to place in scene (Figure 2)

Figure 2 – Scene with objectsFigure 1 – Code Editor

Select

Layout scene (arrange objects)

Change camera

Altering properties of objects

Object selected

Exploration Time

Creating objects Laying out your scene Changing object properties

Once you’re done we’ll continue with adding behavior…

Add object behavior – Part 1 Return to Code editor Click on Select class then select option to create a procedure (Figure 1) Name your procedure (Figure 2)

.

Figure 1 – Create a procedure Figure 2 – Name procedure

Click bring up list of classes

procedure

Add object behavior – Part 2 Select object and it’s procedure (Figure 1) Drag and drop into procedure (Figure 2)

Procedures, Functions, and Contral Statement options (you’ll be prompted to add details)

Figure 1 – Create a procedure

Object selected

ProcedureSelected

Drag & drop

Figure 2 – Drag procedures, functions, control

Call object’s method1. Select Scene’s myFirstMethod2. Select your object3. Drag method into myFirstMethod4. Run to test

1. myFirstMethod

2. Object selected

3. Drag

Add Multi-object behaviors Select object Drag to myfirstMethod an interactive procedure

You’ll be prompted to select an object to interact with .

Cat will move toward person.

Exploration Time Adding object behavior

Exploration Time Adding object behavior No more formal instruction I’ll help you individually as needed

Maybe you’ll even learn something and show me as the girl scouts did in their workshop…

Thanks for attending!REFERENCES FOLLOW

References Adams, J.C., Alice : Middle Schooler's & the Imaginary Worlds Camps. Proceedings SIGCSE, 307-311, 2007. Alice, http://www.alice.org (accessed June 2015). Alice Tutorials, http://www.cs.duke.edu/csed/alice09/tutorials.php (accessed September 2015) Colby, Sandra L., and Jennifer M. Ortman. Projections of the Size and Composition of the US Population:

2014 to 2060. Current Population Reports, Washington, DC: US Census Bureau, 2014. Etoys, http://www.squeakland.org/. GameFront, http://gamefroot.com/. Girl Scouts Research Institute, Generation STEM: What girls say about Science, Technology, Engineering

and Math. New York, NY: Girl Scout Research Institute, 1-39, 2012. Lifelong Kindergarden Group @ MIT Media Lab. Scratch, https://scratch.mit.edu/ (accessed July 10, 2015). MIT Education Arcade. StartLogo TNG, http://education.mit.edu/portfolio_page/starlogo-tng/ Peluso, E M, and E Mauch,Incorporating Alice into a Summer Math and Science Outreach Program, Alice

Symposium, Durham, NC , 2009. Werner, L, S Campe, and J Denner. Children Learning Computer Science Concepts via Alice Game-

Programming, SIGCSE 2012. Raleigh, NC: ACM