Aug 20 2009
Digital Storytelling with Alice
You may be familiar with the famous “Last Lecture” which spread around the internet last year. It was given by Randy Pausch who passed away last summer. If you haven’t seen it, you really should take a look at it.
What you may not be familiar with is the work he did in computer science. The project of his that I am most familiar with is called “Alice.” I had heard about Alice several years before I actually took the time to check it out, and after I did, I regretted taking so long.
This software is amazingly cool, and simple to use – even a middle school kid can master it. It was designed as a tool to teach the fundamentals of object oriented programming, but kids can also use it to tell interactive, digital stories in a 3-D virtual world. It can be downloaded for free from http://www.alice.org and it works on Macs or PC’s.
I have posted two tutorial pages on my website. One is an overview of basic computer operations such as input/output, storage memory, loops, decisions, and math calculations. Another is an example of how to calculate distance using the distance formula with Alice. Both can be downloaded from http://www.billgx.com/alice/
I recommend that you work through the built-in tutorials on Alice before you try to work through my tutorials. The built-in tutorials will explain the basics of the Alice interface, as will as some of the operations that Alice can do. If you are hungry for more, I highly recommend Dick Baldwin’s free Alice tutorials. It is where I went when I was first learning about the software. They can be accessed here: http://www.dickbaldwin.com/tocalice.htm
I want to encourage everyone to TRY THIS SOFTWARE! If you have even modest computer skills, you will be able to figure this out. I would love to hear how you have used this software with your students!
These YouTube videos give you an idea of what can be accomplished with Alice. If you want to record your own videos, be aware that Alice doesn’t have a built-in ability to save video. Simply download the free CamStudio software (sorry it’s for PC’s only), which can record your Alice movie from your screen, and you will be set to share your work with the world as well.
2 responses so far
Create a free edublog to get your own comment avatar (and more!)
Thanks for this post and the additional tutorial resources Bill! I’m planning on using Storytelling Alice for a 3 week course that all our 7th graders will rotate through. Hopefully half an hour a day over the course of 3 weeks will allow them to get somewhere within the program and be able to create some excellent projects. Will keep you posted on how things go!
Todd, I would expect that your 7th graders will amaze you with what they can accomplish, especially if you burn each a CD copy of the software that they can take home! Can’t wait to hear how this works out for you!