Hartwick college

Alice is a new 3 dimensional programming environment that was created at Carnegie Mellon University. This innovative educational software allows students to master computer programming using 3D graphics and animation. It creates a fun and less frustrating atmosphere for introductory programming students to learn and use established programming constructs. Students learn to program by creating their own animated videos and simple computer games. Imagine learning to program a cartoon or video instead of a payroll program!  Once mastered, these same programming and problem solving skills are then easily transferred to a traditional programming language for more advanced study.

At Hartwick College the Computer and Information Sciences department utilizes Alice in two different courses.  Our Introduction to Programming class has been redesigned to make learning to program easier and more enjoyable.  Students begin the semester learning to program in Alice.  Then, the remainder of the semester is spent becoming skilled at programming in Microsoft Visual Basic. At the end of their first programming class students have mastered two programming languages and can continue on to more advanced study in the major.  Those who want to take a single programming class can enroll in a course dedicated to Alice programming only.  In this class students study Alice and create e-cards, interactive games and videos that can be shared on the web. 

The Alice software is a free gift from Carnegie Mellon and students can continue to experiment with the 3 dimensional programming following the end of the semester.  Alice contains hundreds of fun and creative objects to work with.  The images above are from animations that were created using Alice. 

Check out this music video created in Alice