Alice for the Inner-City?
 

As a way to give back to my community, I am thinking about creating a non-profit that introduces inner-city kids to computer programming. I'm at the very early stages of my idea. My thought is that Alice would be a great learning tool. Does anyone have any recommendation for the minimum age for using Alice and learning to program? Is just being computer literate -- how to use a Web browser, how to navigate around Windows or a Mac -- enough?

I have an undergraduate degree in computer science and worked as a programmer for 6 years before making a career change 6 years ago. What type of teaching ability and materials does one need to be an Alice "instructor"? I love working with kids but have no prior teaching experience.

Thanks for the help

V

You didn't mention the age of the group that you were targeting. If they are pre-teen, I'd recommend looking at Scratch ([url]http://scratch.mit.edu/[/url]) instead of Alice. For pre-college (AP) applications, Alice is probably better. For groups inbetween these categories, you will have to use your own judgement - or use both.