Thursday, January 19, 2006

"Alice" from Carnegie Mellon

"What is Alice? (wordy)

Although computer programming has existed in its modern form for half a century, it still eludes all but a small fraction of society.  While programming is an inherently difficult activity, there are currently many barriers, both mechanical and sociological, that prevent large portions of the population from learning to program a computer.

Alice address both the mechanical and sociological barriers that currently prevent many students from successfully learning to program a computer. Alice addresses the mechanical barriers to programming by making it much easier for students to create programs. Rather than having to correctly type commands according to obscure rules of syntax, students drag-and-drop words in a direct manipulation interface. This user interface ensures that programs are always well-formed. In addition, Alice reifies object-based programming by providing animated, on-screen 3D virtual objects.

...

What is Alice? (Abbreviated)

Learning to program a computer is hard.

Alice makes learning to program easier. And it's fun.

..."

This is a pretty darn cool project from Carnegie Mellon.

I'm thinking this might be a cool way to introduce my son to the programming logic concepts. And it just looks cool too...

(via Scobleizer - Thank you Carnegie Mellon!)

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