alice-teacher lesson help?

[NANCY A. DUGRE]

I have been teaching Alice for over four years to mixed ability students in grades 9-12 in block scheduling (4x4 - 85 minutes) . My strongest recommendation in the first year is to use Learning to Program with Alice - Dann, Cooper and Pausch along with the website available with the text.  Several universities have posted some amazing tutorials and ideas there as well. 

  I have also supplemented with Gaddis' Alice book.  His book has some great step-by-step tutorials.  After a first year of using these materials that are both thorough and excellent guides, I began customizing my curriculum.   I should note that this is a first year course in my program that includes Visual Basic, AppInventor and AP Java.  

  I strongly emphasize proper program design, well-written efficient code and good programming techniques.  If your course is based solely on independent projects with none of the elements I mentioned then you will discover to some extent that students in whose ability is below an honors/AP level will struggle. 

All the exercises that both text authors offer are project based.  Don't reinvent the wheel before you tried it out yourself with a class. This year I implmented projects that were cooperative...4 students assigned to design and complete one application.  Having owned my own software development company, this assignment was heavily involved but most reflected a real-world industry environment.   The students had over a month to complete the project, exterior to normal course assignments.  



  
Regards, 
Nancy A. Dugre 
Edline Coordinator 
Technology Department - Computer Science / IT Teacher 
Minnechaug Regional High School 
621 Main Street Wilbraham, MA 01095 
(413) 596-9011 ext. 385 
(413) 596-8907 fax 
email: ndugre at hwrsd.org 
----- Original Message -----

From: "Julie Nichols" <jnichols at kcisd.net> 
To: alice-teachers at lists.andrew.cmu.edu 
Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2012 2:09:03 PM 
Subject: alice-teacher lesson help? 



I am new to teaching and using Alice. Are there some lesson ideas or activities I can access? Are there any specific project descriptions or grading rubrics with pacing and deadlines? 
  
Julie L. Nichols 
Karnes City High School Teacher 
Badger Times and Q Cast adviser and UIL Journalism sponsor 
Graphic Design and Illustration, Principles of Art, Audio/Video Technology and Communications,  Principles of Information Technology, and Audio/Video Production 
(830)780-2321 ext. 316 
  
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