Wednesday, April 23, 2008

This Ain't The Brady's Alice

We're kind of nerdy here at the green3 household. We're plugged in, networked, wireless, wii'd, you name it. So it's no surprise that I'm all over Alice. Hmm, maybe poor wording there.

For those of you who have jumped on the Randy Pausch bandwagon with me, you've probably heard of Alice. (Or if you are not nerdy like me, maybe you missed that part of his lecture.) Pausch was a member of a virtual reality team that designed the Alice program. This program teaches kids and adults about computer programming, without them even realizing it. Pausch is a professor at Carnegie Mellon, and they have generously offered this program free to anyone who wants to use it. It can be for your person use or for classroom use.

There are currently two version available: Alice and Storytelling Alice. We've downloaded the regular Alice, even though it was designed for high school and college students. Three LOVES it. He creates his own little virtual reality videos using this program. I think he made three videos just tonight. And the best part is that he is able to do it himself!

I'll definitely be downloading Storytelling Alice, which is designed for Middle School students and might keep his attention better.

Alice gets high marks from the me and Three!