29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
lovely innovation in teaching programming, October 19, 2005
In a way, this is a tricky book for me to review. I learnt programming with Fortran on punch cards [remember them?]. Then later gravitated to other languages like Pascal, C and Java. But it was only in the 90s that languages started coming out with graphics built in. Prior to that, it was mostly text and binary Input/Output. That was our User Interface, shocking as it might seen to some of you. So there were always abstractions in learning a language, from the very start.
The authors of this book are spot on in saying that there has been little or no change in the teaching of programming to beginners, in the last 30 years. The languages being taught may have changed. Some are now object oriented, and have graphics libraries. But the basic pedagogy has remained constant all this time. So for example the classic "Pascal: User Manual and Report" from 1980 and a current book on Java have this in common.
The innovation offered by Alice is a stark contrast indeed. Alice lets you learn [or teach] a special programming language that manipulates objects in a three dimensional world. The emphasis is on the object-oriented nature of Alice. While other languages use the metaphor of OO mapping to and from real world objects, Alice gives a literal visual mapping that students can readily comprehend. Alice removes the middleman metaphor.
Interestingly, the authors suggest that Alice shifts some of the mental effort from the student's cognition to her perceptual [visual] system. Her visual incoming bandwidth is so large that visual changes can be readily understood.
The authors cite studies that show a faster uptake by students using Alice, compared to students without Alice. And more girls seem to go further with their programming. One could wonder if this ties into other studies suggesting that boys have [slightly] better abstract spatial understanding. By reducing this need, does Alice make programming more accessible to girls?
Alice has several niceties that aid in its usage. Especially useful is the lack of syntax issues. The essentially menu or icon driven implementation means that a student does not have to type in syntax. Hence avoiding a common source of errors. For students with a limited attention span, this removes a big source of frustration.
To be sure, Alice is just meant as a teaching language. Students are expected to graduate onto more realistic languages. But Alice can help those delicate cases of newcomers to programming retain some knowledge, and possibly even take more advanced courses. Here, the authors point out that an important special usage is for a course aimed at students who will not be programmers. That will be their first and only programming course. The teaching of such a course is important, and Alice might help.
If this book is well received, then a companion book would be helpful. The current book is meant for an instructor, though some students could certainly use it. What is needed is a simpler book, aimed perhaps at the primary school level, for the student reader. Maybe Dann et al are already working on that?
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Used it as textbook. Excellent!, July 20, 2007
"One of Alice's real strengths is that it has been able to make abstract concepts concrete in the eyes of first- time programmers. " - Forward to the book.
I used this book as a textbook in a one-semester introduction to programming course in my high school. I intend to use it again next year. Here is why:
Each chapter begins with a motivational overview of the chapter's topic and end with exercises and projects. Storyboards are used to provide an algorithmic step-by-step description of the example animation. Screenshots of code and visual setting allowed students to recreate and closely follow the covered topic.
Student had their copies of the book open next to their workstations. Throughout the course, they were focused, on task and having fun. This made my experience teaching the course very rewarding. Answers to end of chapter exercises, projects and instructional support material are available to instructors on [..]
With no hesitation I give it 5 stars.
M. Kadri (High School Teacher, New York, NY USA)
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good for Students - Not So Good for Casual Use, November 18, 2006
If you're already teaching or taking a course in Alice, you'll at least need access to this book. Being by the developers and also first to market - it is the standard text. As a text, it's also very good - but also focused on teaching programming principles, not doing animations.
If you've never heard of Alice or just have a general interest in it's capabilities, I'd suggest you download the program from the web first (it's free from CMU) and see what you think of it. If it interests you and seems to fit your needs (note you can't output standard video files such as .mov and/or .avi and the .html output is buggy), then invest in one of the texts.
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