Teaching with Joel Adams' "Alice in Action with Java"

PeterBooth · **Teaching with Joel Adams' "Alice in Action with Java" -** 09-12-2008, 06:50 AM

Greetings all!
I'm a hs math teacher who suddenly finds himself teaching a CS class. Long story (very) short, I haven't programmed since 1983 and now I'm trying to teach 21 hs seniors how to program. We are using Joel Adams' "Alice in Action with Java" and I'm wondering if anyone has created any supporting materials. I know abotu the stuff from the publisher (powerpoints, tests, lesson notes, etc) but what I'm looking for is some kind of rubric or grading ideas for the the end-of-chapter projects.

I actually emailed Joel and he said that he didn't have anything, but suggested this forum as a possible place to look for other teachers who may have created scoring/grading rubrics/documents. So, here I am. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? :-)

Thanks,
Peter Booth
Champlain Valley Union High School.
Hinesburg, Vermont

11:55 AM

Hi Peter,
The Gaddis book comes with a lot of supplementary materials.
http://www.kidslike.info/alice_book_...in_a_classroom
I don't know if it comes with some kind of rubric for scoring the student assignments.

This page compares various Alice books (plus books for Scratch and other languages)
http://www.kidslike.info/recommended...ds_programming
Maybe one of the books on this page come with some kind of rubric.

02-03-2011, 08:31 PM

Hi peter,

Could you share your experience teaching programming using Alice ?

I´d like to do the same with my classroom.

Thanks in advice.

PeterBooth · 02-04-2011, 07:24 AM

I would strongly recommend Alice for a non-AP class. If your goal is to get kids a grounding in Java and OOP in general I thought Alice worked very well. There isn't enough time for it in an APCS class. The only other negative of using Alice is that after the fun, GUI experience with Alice going into Java seems like a step backwards for kids. The content/syntax is much harder than Alice (obviously) and the 'payoff' in terms of what you can create is much less engaging.
Peter

02-08-2011, 06:35 AM

Thanks for reply Peter,
My aim is produce a reinforce class in an APCS class. A kind of course out of schedule to students with stronger difficulties in OOP and Java.
I´m thinking to start reading the book 'Starting Out with Alice' to obtain resource to build some supporting materials.

Have you been done any supporting material ? Could you share if yes ?

Thank you

03-10-2011, 02:02 PM

One warning about Alice in Action with Java: the ThunkIt program seems to be vaporware. I was looking forward to having a complex but appropriate game for my kids to dig into, but I can't find any info about it anywhere, and the publisher's own site has one sentence saying it essentially doesn't exist.

DensetsuNoKaboom · 07-16-2011, 10:37 AM

^Has this guy been banned for being a spambot yet?

PeterBooth · 08-12-2011, 08:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flats

One warning about Alice in Action with Java: the ThunkIt program seems to be vaporware. I was looking forward to having a complex but appropriate game for my kids to dig into, but I can't find any info about it anywhere, and the publisher's own site has one sentence saying it essentially doesn't exist.

I think you're thinking of "Programming with Alice and Java" by John Lewis and Peter DePasquale. The Pearson website for this book says "Please note: The ThunkIt application is not available as planned for this edition of the book. Please note that the website www[.]thunkit[.]net no longer relates to this book."

This wasn't Joel Adams' book. (If I'm wrong someone correct me, but I think I'm not.)

Peter