Learning to Program with Alice Brief Edition

[GordB]

Hello: I'm using Alice 2.0 in an intro to CS class for grade 10 students and had originally purchased the textbook Learning to Program With Alice, Brief Edition. Will this text still be appropriate to use with version 2.2, or would you recommend a different text?

Thank you.

[DrJim]

I'll start by noting that I'm not a teacher and the following is only my personal opinion, which reflects how I actually use Alice 2.0 and 2.2. Other comments are certainly welcome. :)

Even though the latest version of Alice 2.2 is significantly improved over the first release, it still uses a lot more memory - especially if you try to capture a lot of video. Memory usage is always a problem with Alice (or any 3D video application, for that matter).

Version 2.2 is also not that different from Alice 2.0, so I wouldn't change texts just for 2.2 (though the newer version text may be improved) since you'll just have to change again for 3.0 - which will be different.

Personally, I just copy the 2.2 folder with the walking characters into the gallery for 2.0 and then use 2.0 for program development.

Since I'm on a PC, I also use a screen capture program to capture any video, since Movie Maker doesn't support the .mov format and the video's from 2.2 generally need some editing. The video output method in 2.2 just uses a screen capture approach and it's quite hard to get starts and stops exactly where you want. Plus it's nice to be able to combine several small video files into one large final output. It's also easier to add sound to the final video with an external editor.

If I was on a Mac, my approach would probably change. Just having the built-in video output capability might also be better in a classroom environment. In that case, I'd do the development in 2.0 and then the final video capture in 2.2. Compared to the size of the video output files, having both programs available really doesn't "cost" much.

[GordB]

Thanks for the feedback :)