keynote

Alice: a dying man's passion

Author:

Randy PauschAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, Volume 40, Issue 1

Page 1

https://doi.org/10.1145/1352322.1352137

Published: 12 March 2008 Publication History

Get Access

Abstract

I have spent the last fifteen years of my life leading an incredible team. Our quest (which we did not even realize in the beginning) was to revolutionize the way computer programming is taught. Current versions of the Alice system (Alice v2.0, and Caitlin Kelleher's "Storytelling Alice") have been very effective in the college classroom and in tests with middle school girls. The use of drag-and-drop authoring to create 3D movies has proved to be a powerful motivator for students of all ages and both genders. In 2008, we will release Alice v3.0, which provides "real Java" programming and the characters from EA's "The Sims," the most popular PC video game in history.

Damn shame I won't be there to see it. As you probably know, I'm dying of pancreatic cancer, as became widely known in my "Last Lecture." Like Moses, I get to see the promised land, but not set foot in it. But the vision is clear. Long before I became ill, Dennis Cosgrove took over the responsibility for the design of Alice v3.0, and he's doing a whale of a job. Steve Cooper (of St. Joseph's University), Wanda Dann, and Don Slater are handling the pedagogic materials for college and high school, and Caitlin Kelleher (now junior faculty at Washington University in St. Louis) is heading the efforts regarding middle school girls.

This talk will address the history, philosophy, and future of the Alice project, and will include a behind-the-scenes look at a pre-release version of Alice v3.0. I will give this address in person if I am still alive and able, or by a combination of pre-taped video and help from the Alice team. I cannot imagine a better professional legacy than what the Alice team is currently building.

Index Terms

Alice: a dying man's passion
1. Applied computing
  1. Education
2. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education

Recommendations

Alice: a dying man's passion
SIGCSE '08: Proceedings of the 39th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education

I have spent the last fifteen years of my life leading an incredible team. Our quest (which we did not even realize in the beginning) was to revolutionize the way computer programming is taught. Current versions of the Alice system (Alice v2.0, and ...
Who is Alice?
ALICE '13: Proceedings of Alice Symposium on Alice Symposium

At my school, Alice is an elective class in middle school and high school and has provided a great opportunity for students to shine at many levels. After the first week of school this year I asked a seventh grade student if everyone liked Alice. She ...
Alice Summer Camps: Evaluating Multiple Formats
ALICE '13: Proceedings of Alice Symposium on Alice Symposium

During the summer of 2009, an Alice camp was taught to gifted students in our region. The following year our department secured an NSF CPATH Grant for Computational Thinking, grant number 0939106. In 2010 we hosted two weeks of our Adventures with Alice ...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

ACM SIGCSE Bulletin Volume 40, Issue 1

SIGCSE 08

March 2008

549 pages

ISSN:0097-8418

DOI:10.1145/1352322

Issue’s Table of Contents

SIGCSE '08: Proceedings of the 39th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
March 2008
606 pages
ISBN:9781595937995
DOI:10.1145/1352135
General Chairs:
J. D. Dougherty
Haverford College
,
Susan Rodger
Duke University
,
Program Chairs:
Sue Fitzgerald
Metropolitan State University
,
Mark Guzdial
Georgia Institute of Technology

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 12 March 2008

Published in SIGCSE Volume 40, Issue 1

Check for updates

Author Tag

alice

Qualifiers

Keynote

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

6
Total Citations
View Citations
952
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)5
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)1

Reflects downloads up to 01 Dec 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Index Terms

Recommendations

Alice: a dying man's passion

Who is Alice?

Alice Summer Camps: Evaluating Multiple Formats