Schools
Alice Freeware Inspires Rockwood Students
Area students develop computer games, tell interactive stories and make movies—all while having fun learning the Alice software program, one of Rockwood School District's Summer Enrichment offerings.
Some local middle schoolers this month picked up a new friend named Alice. Now they can spend part of the summer in new, virtual worlds.
'Alice' is an innovative, 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create animations. Through drop and drag methods, Alice enables users to tell stories, play interactive games or to share web-based videos. Randy Pausch, author of "The Last Lecture," was instrumental in the development of the the Alice project, along with faculty and students at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg, PA.
The unique program was designed to give middle school students a positive, first programming experience and to spark their interests in computer science.
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Rockwood School District teachers, Trina Priese and Janice Carpini, studied the program at Duke University in North Carolina last summer in preparation to teach this class as part of the Rockwood Summer Enrichment Program. Both teachers are business education teachers during the school year. Priese is on staff at ; Carpini is on staff at . Both schools are located in Wildwood.
Alice is a well-recognized information technology program. Both Rockwood teachers said they were convinced that Alice is a great way to get middle schoolers interested in programming. "The great thing is that it entails using higher level, 21st century skills, like creativity, logic and problem solving. The program also incorporates math and science concepts in its reasoning," said Priese.
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Fifteen students participated in the Alice Program offered June 6-17 from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at LaSalle Springs Middle. This is the second year Alice has been offered during the district's Summer Enrichment Program, however the Alice program can be downloaded at home for free from its website.
Carpini and Priese use Alice 2.2 version, and recommend that everyone else does, as well. Rockwood eighth grade students throughout the district also can take the Digital Information Technology class, which uses the Alice program as part of the curriculmn.
If you ever wondered how Wii & Xbox games are created, then check out Alice. With a little imagination, you can create your own game or video.