Teaching Alice Outside a School Scenario

[yak]

Hi,

Are there any limitations using Alice 2.0 for teaching students after school for profit?

[pausch]

There are no limitations - the Alice v2.0 software is provided as a free public service by Carnegie Mellon University. You may, for example, teach a for-profit course using the software.

[yak]

Thanks for the prompt reply.

And thanks for a great educational tool. I wish I had a tool like this to learn programming when I was in school.

[Vettish]

Hi,

I'm trying to get an after school group started at my kids school. My intent was to get the kids interested in technology through the WOW factor... So i was focusing on robots, but I inadvertently stumbled onto the phenomenon that is Randy. Through my fascination reading and listening, I'm enraptured with the idea of adding Alice to my makeshift course. Computers are the one resource I have access to. I can only afford so many robotics kits. My thought is that the two technologies will play well together. The skills the kids learn in Alice can be used to program their robots, albeit in a different language, but the ideas transfer well.

My question. How do i get access to teaching resources. There seems to be a limitation on ther resources being for "teachers" only. I'm just a dad, with a cause.

On a related note, Randy's story hits very close to home for me. I lost my mother to pancreatic cancer 5 yrs ago, and my children, lost their father to brain cancer 3 yrs ago. I've been lucky to have met their mother, and adopted them into my life. their father was a University of Pitt engineering grad who went on to author on Linux topics. He was instrumental in founding our charter school, and was also an instructor there. My children, while still young, have a voracious appetite for technology. I want to honor them, and their father by contributing to their education, and the betterment of their school.

Thanks!

Patrick

[DickBaldwin]

Hi,

I'm trying to get an after school group started at my kids school. ...

My question. How do i get access to teaching resources. There seems to be a limitation on ther resources being for "teachers" only. I'm just a dad, with a cause.

...

Thanks!

Patrick

Fortunately, Alice 2.0 is very long on free programming capability, but unfortunately, it is also very short on free documentation. As far as I know, nothing is documented in Alice 2.0 except in commercially published textbooks, which are definitely not free for most people. This was a great disappointment for me, having spent the past 11 years enjoying the free Java software and the outstanding free Java documentation available online from Sun. That is the reason that I decided to publish some Alice 2.0 documentation and to make it freely available online.

Dick Baldwin
Free Alice tutorials: http://www.dickbaldwin.com/tocalice.htm
Free programming tutorials: http://www.dickbaldwin.com/toc.htm

[alicefan]

You can find a free basic tutorial for Alice on kids like . info
http://www.kidslike.info/programming_alice_lesson_1_alien_robot_teaches_kid _robot_trick
There are also many other pages about Alice on the site.