Incorporating Alice into a Summer Math and Science Outreach Program

1. Incorporating Alice into a Summer Math and Science Outreach Program Eileen M. Peluso Lycoming College Williamsport, PA 17701 Elizabeth Mauch Bloomsburg University Bloomsburg, PA 17815

2. Overview • How it all began • Program structure • MSSE 2007 • MSSE 2008 • Results • Alice content • Lessons learned • Future plans • Acknowledgements

3. How it all began Hi Elizabeth, I'm a Bloom alum ('73) and I see from the most recent University Magazine that you are planning summer experiences for young women in late June. I have a strong interest in gender issues in technology in general, and in computer science in particular, and I've done enough research to know that they start to lose interest in middle school. It is through enrichment/outreach programs such as yours that we can start to make a difference. From your website, it appears that you have everything planned out, but if you could use some extra help, I'd be more than happy to participate. Eileen M. Peluso, PhD Chair, Mathematical Sciences Department 05/09/2007

4. Program Structure – MSSE 2007 • All girls – middle school age • One 2-hour session • Two groups of about 20 each • Portable laptop lab • Classroom with tables • Computer projection • Self-selected groups of 2-3, generally • Demonstrate and work along • Saved worlds to the desktop • Burned to CDs after the session ended

5. Program Structure – MSSE 2008 • Four 1½-hour sessions • Two groups of about 20 each – rotated between 3 subject areas • One group all girls, the other mixed • Middle school age • Traditional lab • Computer projection • Everyone chose to work individually • Mixture of demonstrate-and-work-along and independent work • Saved worlds on donated thumb drives • Collected each day until the last

6. Results • What makes MSSE different? • MSSE 2007 – much to everyone’s surprise • MSSE 2008– invited back to be one of three • Surveys • Falls into the what-can-we-do-better category • 82 students in all • 56 indicated that they liked Alice the best and would return for more study • That’s 68.3% … of students who selected a Math and Science Summer Experience!

7. Links (added after the symposium) • Links to the materials used in the Alice sessions of Bloomsburg University’s Math and Science Summer Experience Computer Programming through Animation with Alice - http://www.lycoming.edu/~pelusoem/SummerOutreach/BU2008.htm Storytelling using Computer Animation with Alice - http://www.lycoming.edu/~pelusoem/SummerOutreach/BU2007.htm • For an excellent summary of the gender-related issues in computer science, the research done, and ideas for dealing with the issues, I highly recommend the following: Klawe, M., Whitney, T., and Simard, C. 2009. Women in Computing – Take 2. Commun ACM. 52, 2 (Feb 2009), 68-76.

8. Alice Content • Detailed descriptions and links to resources are in the paper • Lesson plans • Handouts • DAY 1: He-builder or She-builder character with two pets • Introducing classes and objects, built-in methods, method calls and parameters, sequential processing, doTogether, user interaction, Boolean variables, if/else, and quad-view

9. Alice Content • DAY 2: Mr. and Mrs. Snowman • Writing our own methods (rumba, surprise, and blush) • Motivated discussion of object sub-parts, loops, and the color property

10. Alice Content • DAY 3: kanagrooRobot and alienOnWheels • Event processing, camera movement, and the vehicle property • Students who worked faster entertained themselves by adding more to their worlds • Free time: Build an obstacle course with a character that the user moves through

11. Alice Content • DAY 4: • Discussion of trial-and-error approach to programming • Determining an objects center and orientation • Storyboarding and free time to implement their storylines Note that the “calls” below are done by clicking and dragging the axes object from the Object Tree over the image and selecting the methods. • Add an axes object to your animation. (Resize if necessary.) • Call axes.moveTo method to the object • Call axes.orientTo method to the object • Call axes.setVehicleTo method to the object

12. Future Plans • MSSE 2009 expands to a two-week program • Week 1 – Advanced Alice for returning students • Week 2 – MSSE 2008 will be reprised for new students • Pre- and post- survey forms targeting student attitudes about programming and computer science • Spring 2010 inreach program • Develop and teach a 2-week unit in Alice in area schools • Goals: • Introduce Alice to a large number of young people • Educate area technology teachers in the Alice programming environment and its use • Pre- and post- survey forms targeting student attitudes about programming and computer science

13. Lessons Learned • Don’t try to teach a session if you are the camp administrator • Don’t go to the campus commons for lunch every day • Provide convenient storage for their worlds • Arrange for a lab assistant

14. Acknowledgements • Thank you to the following organizations for their financial support: • Mathematical Association of America • American Association of University Women • The Central Susquehanna Community Foundation • The Bloomsburg University Foundation • Bloomsburg University