Elementary School Users?

I am just experimenting myself with this program to familiarize myself with it. Because I am an elementary educator, I am wondering if anyone has tried to use the program with younger children and if so, would it be possible to use Alice with children as young as second grade? Just wondering.

I think Storytelling Alice is a great choice for 2nd graders. I teach a class w/4th through 8th and the students love working with Storytelling Alice. Just take it slow. I do a 10-15 min. lesson and the rest of the time is open. Enjoy!

(sometimes younger siblings sit in and work w/Storytelling Alice also)
I can send you a general scope and sequence of topics that has worked for me.

I introduced Alice to my 10-year-old son about a week and a half ago, and he has really taken off with it! He does have *some* scripting experience from his time in Roblox, as well. He has only used the tutorials, and then just started creating all kinds of worlds! We will be using the online course from Dick Baldwin starting in January (we are homeschoolers), but he has learned most of the first 3 lessons of that course just playing with it on his own!

However, my other 10-year-old son (fraternal twin) has not found it as easy. He has not been as motivated to go through the tutorials on his own, but I will be doing them with him over the Christmas holidays to see if that makes a difference. His personality is such that he usually needs some hand-holding to venture into something new like this before becoming comfortable with it. He also does NOT have the Roblox scripting experience, either.

HTH!

It's funny you should post now. I had a similar question and just sent the following email to Caitlin Kelleher (creator of Storytelling Alice) and Dennis Cosgrove (who referred me back to Caitlin). I'll let folks know what I hear, if anything.

I'd love to brainstorm with people on finding ways to integrate Alice into the Elementary School curriculum, with careful attention to tying Alice lessons to Virginia's Standards of Learning. The way things are structured here in VA, teachers can't spare the time to do anything that isn't directly tied to improving SOL test scores.

Best,
Rob

Dear Dr. Kelleher,

I am an instructional designer and developer at Virginia Tech's
Institute for Distance and Distributed Learning and am interested in
finding ways to begin introducing students to Alice in elementary
school. A little background on me: I have an undergraduate background
in Elementary Education with emphases in Math/CS and Cultural Arts and
a Masters degree in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in
Instructional Design and Technology and have been working at Tech for
the last seven years putting university courses on the web. My real
reason for getting into the field originally though was my conviction
that exposing children to programming concepts very early in their
schooling would provide a framework for effectively modeling the world
and thinking systematically across disciplines.

I have been aware of Alice (and Storytelling Alice) for a couple of years
and, with my son just entering preschool, I would like to devote some
of my energies to working with people here at the university, in the
local public school system, and perhaps more broadly in the Alice
community to find ways to integrate this wonderful development
environment into the elementary school curriculum. Obviously, there
would be limits to what students could do from a programming
perspective so early on, but I can think of many ways where the
storytelling aspect of Alice would enhance learning in any number of
subject areas. Exposing students to Alice, in even a limited way, in
the early grades, would allow them to become familiar with the program
and make it that much easier to begin using it in middle school to
learn elementary programming. I think people underestimate how easy
it is for young children to soak this stuff up. Though my son is
gifted, at four he already has fun playing with Alice, making the
characters and objects move around and do different things.

Right now, I am just brainstorming and thinking of the possibilities,
but I would love to talk with you sometime when you have a free moment
about my ideas and see if you can give me any insights. Could I call
you sometime?

Thanks,
Rob

While I am a great Alice fan, for younger children it may be a bit of a large first step. I would certainly recommend also taking a look at Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu/) which is specifically targeted for younger users and has a very active forum.

It's really not (IMO) an either/or choice - both programs have their strengths and weaknesses, something worth learning (again IMO) in itself.

Hi, I would like to receive the Scope and Sequence for teaching Storytelling Alice that you followed in your classrooms. Thank you in advance.

Originally Posted by jilljordan

I think Storytelling Alice is a great choice for 2nd graders. I teach a class w/4th through 8th and the students love working with Storytelling Alice. Just take it slow. I do a 10-15 min. lesson and the rest of the time is open. Enjoy!

(sometimes younger siblings sit in and work w/Storytelling Alice also)
I can send you a general scope and sequence of topics that has worked for me.

[ericromwel]

I am getting ready to implement a summer center program for gifted students starting in July. While I'm not as concerned for session 2 (grades 8-10), I am concerned about session 1 (grades 4-7). We plan on using Alice 2.0. Has anyone had success with Alice 2.0 and younger students?

[Mr Kidnapper]

Mr. Kidnapper does not recommend Alice 2.0. He does however recommend 2.2. The problem he sees with Alice is however, while the program is certainly geared towards children of that age, he does not imagine that they would entirely be able to understand them because of their age.
When I was 13, I tried Blender. The most I could make was a box, a pole, and a cone to look like a ghetto satellite dish. I am 16 now. It has not been long since I first tried Autodesk 3ds Max, and I can make an entire sniper rifle from scratch and a few reference images.
Cool story bro indeed. I hate Blender.
Cool story aside, what you need a little more here are English teachers that know a bit of math. I don't expect 4-7 grade students to comprehend what a lot of the commands in this thing does. Alice is different from normal programming experiences, because instead of the natural way people think of numbers, it uses percentages in decimal form as its preferred method. Instead of 255 RGB, it is 1.0 RGB. Instead of a 360º turning angle, or even radians, it is 1 revolution. It took me quite a while to get over this difference and I don't expect it to be much different for them.