Week of 6/2 - 6/6  (week 1)

 

Monday and Tuesday -

 

These two days consisted of a formal introduction with everyone I will be   working with for the duration of the program.  I am working with four other Duke students but there   are two other Duke students working on a separate project.   I received specific details on the exact    tasks the project consists of.  In the afternoon we had a meeting with Professor Rodger where we   discussed upcoming events.  The closest one was a two week workshop with high school and   middle school teachers.  They will be coming with children between the ages of 10 - 16.  Professor   Rodger advised us to come up with material for the two weeks.  We planned on developing material   using Alice, Un - Plugged, and Scratch.  Three of my co workers presented tutorials they had   created.  The group critiqued them and we came up with new ideas for different material.  After   Professor Rodger left we had a second meeting with just the five of us.  In that meeting we   discussed a specific division of labor and what everyone will be working on for the week.  The rest   of the day was spent with everyone doing their assigned task.

 

Wednesday -

 

We began the day by reviewing some Alice material and getting use to the new development environment.  After sometime with Alice I began editing the website for CRA and Professor Rogder.  I made a lot of progress.  At lunch time we all went to the cs department lounge to eat lunch.  Everyone who was working at Duke University during the summer was at the lunch so everyone got to see who else is working in the department.  There was also a fun introduction session where everyone introduced who they were, where they were from, and what professor they are working for.   Soon after, we attended a presentation by Professor Owen Astrachan who works at Duke.  He talked about new ways of looking at computer science.  He spoke specifically about fingerprints and how computer science can be related to the topic. He used humor in his talk and brought up new ways of thinking about encryption, identification and how computer science has changed in the past 20 year.   The talk was a good break away from the computer.  It was also very interesting.

 

Thursday-

 

This morning we had a meeting with Professor Rodger.  She basically gave us an update on what was going on with the upcoming workshop.  We also discussed what she expects us to produce and put on the web.  She reminded us to download Alice 2.2, which has not been introduced to the world yet, in a sense we were the guinea pigs who get to debug the new edition of Alice.  Story Telling Alice is another version of Alice that she told us to download and come up with different tutorials and material for.  The meeting was over around 11 am and we were left to do some work.  I continued building the required website and manage to get it on the web with some of the required material. I also read one of the suggested readings by professor Rodger. Here is a quick summary:

 

JAWAA: Easy Web-Based Animation from CS 0 to Advanced CS Courses -
authors: Ayonike Akingbadez, Thomas Finley

Here is a link to the article:   http://www.cs.duke.edu/csed/rodger/papers/cse03.pdf

 

 Friday - 

 

I started the day by doing one of the required readings.  There is a brief summary at the end of this journal entry.  After, I did quite a bit of work proofreading and updating the information on the website.  For the ladder portion of my time, I continued to learn Alice.  I have completed all the exercises in the appendixes.  I have been trying to figure out how to use arrays to make a game where the user sorts animals by height.  I am still in the learning stages, this is more like a learning experience rather then building a tutorial or making a world that I plan to use for the Alice workshop.

 

Social Networks Generate Interest in Computer Science

 

Casey Alt, Owen Astrachan, Jeffrey Forbes, Richard Lucic, Susan Rodger

Department of Computer Science

Duke University, Durham, NC 27708

 

The article addresses the trend of declining number of students enrolling in computer science. In the reading, the authors’ state different studies and research with high school students especially women point out the programming approach is failing to attract a broad variety of students to the computer science field.  It is also pointed out that a study has shown AP CS courses are the only AP courses with a declining enrollment.  As a solution, they propose developing new modules and teaching material that will appeal to a wider range of students.  The plan includes injecting a more math based curriculum that is still in sync with the ideas of computer science at all levels of education. They clearly state that they don’t want to change the programming requirement for introduction courses and higher lever courses in computer science but they want to create a new curriculum model with new material for the courses.  They also describe the use of Science of Networks to broaden the participation of students in computer science.  This is because of its requirement of multiple disciplines and segregated areas of knowledge. 

 

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Week of 6/9 - 6/13 (Week 2)

 

Monday - 

 

The day began with reading an article.  The summary is at the end of this journal entry.  Once I finished that and made some changes to the website I began reviewing the Alice material I have been working on since last week.  My next project which I plan to start by the end of today is a suggested program in the Alice book.  It is a frog jumping program.  The frog must jump form lily pad to lily pad while the lily pads are going back and forth at differnt speeds.  If the frog misses a lily pad he sinks and the game is over. If the frog makes it to the other side the game is over and the user wins.     

 

Tools for Teaching Introductory Programming: 

What Works?

 

The article explained the use of different mechanisms to help teach novice computer science students programming.  A category covered in the article is visual programming tools.  One of the tools mentioned was Alice, a 3 - D virtual worlds environment that allows students to drag and drop objects to create movies, computer games, or tell a story.  According to the article this is an appealling feature to a wide range of students.  Alice can introduce core concepts of object oriented programming without confusing syntax issues and error messages of a traditional programming language. Another tool covered in this category was Jeroo.  The second category is flow-model tools.  The article posits a great benefit for tools in this category is the ability to represent algorithms in a simple manner.  The results reported a 95% increase among the scores of participating students on problem solving sections on final exams.   The third category mentioned is specialized realization. This is the use of Lego MindStorms in the class room or any robot building kit. The reported benefit of this is the motivation factor.  It states kids are more focused on tasks since they enjoy manipulating the robots.  The students can use C++, Java, or Robolab to program the robots. 

                                                         

                                                                           

Tuesday- 

 

I have been working on various Alice projects throughout the Alice book to learn how to use Alice so I can eventually develop creative new programs of my own.  Since yesterday I was working on a frog jumping program.  The object of the program is to jump form lily pad to lily pad until the frog gets all the way across a pool.  The lily pads move across the pool at random speeds and if the frog doesn’t land on a lily pad then he sinks into the pool and the program ends.  My co workers have been very helpful in assisting me with my questions. Once I finished working on the frog program I read another article.  The summary is below. 

 

ALICE: A 3-D TOOL FOR

INTRODUCTORY PROGRAMMING CONCEPTS

 

The article discusses the details of Alice. It is not a full documentation of the program but it describes a good portion of the underlying pieces of it.  It begins with analyzing some important questions that should be addressed before teachers implement Alice and use it with there kids.  For example, what is missing?   It is concerned with the type of programming background the students have.  What type of previous work have they done? It also describes how the use of animation to teach is not a new idea.  They are concerned with how to improve its use for the best results.  The article continues on to describe certain aspects of Alice.  They include actions, named instructions, functions, recursion and looping, events interactions.  Actions refer to two different categories. The objects within Alice world can perform and action or an action can change the physical nature of an object. Named instructions are similar to the concept of a procedure in traditional programming.  Functions give the ability to compute values and return them.  Events and interactions allow users to create a GUI (graphical user interfaces). There are list boxes, check boxes, and sliders available as objects within Alice. 

 

Wednesday- 

 

I have finished my work on the frog program.  In the future I plan to create tutorials on how to reproduce the program and point out some of the important computer science concepts that it involves.  I started the day by working on a new project.  It is a program where a chicken has to cross 3 roads to eat gum drops.  There are cars going back and forth on the roads and if the chicken it hit by a car then the game ends. As long as the chicken is not squished or has not eaten all the gum drops the game continues to run.  The game ends when there are no more gum drops left.  The book is attempting to explain the concept of recursive calls with this project.  Once I am done I will also make a tutorial for this project as well.   Once lunch time came around we had a group lunch. A grad student gave a presentation.  It was very informative about grad school.  He explained the general everyday tasks of a grad school. He also pointed out how he came to the decision of attending grad school and how he chose Duke.  It was very useful because I would like to attend grad school and he gave some important points to consider.  When we came back from lunch I read an article.  I provided a quick summary below.

 

Teaching Objects-first In Introductory Computer Science

 

The focus of this article is to present a new way to use the object-first approach to teach intro-computer science courses.  The first section of the reading describes the challenges of the object-first approach.  The article continues on to explain how the newly presented method will meet those challenges.  It points out a significant challenge for the object-first approach is its inability to have students’ master functions and the principles of object oriented programming design at the same time.  It then introduces Alice, a 3-D virtual worlds environment to meet that challenge.  A brief description of the abilities of Alice is then provided. In this description, the process of creating code using a drag-n-drop system, the process of creating and changing a virtual world is also covered.  Three important points to that are addressed in the article in respect to how Alice meets the challenge. One, it reduces the complexity of details which is seen in the programming first approach.  Two, Alice provides a design first approach to objects.  Three, it allows the students to visualize objects in a meaningful context.  The article ends by presenting observations and statistics recorded from Ithaca students of 2001 - 2002.   

 

Thursday-

 

I have found creating worlds in Alice to be really fun.  I finished three projects,  I will spend the next week or so refining them and making them look more realistic.  I will also be making either power points or web page tutorials to explain exactly what is happening behind the scenes of each project.  For most of the day I was coding the chicken project which will eventually be used to explain the concept of recursive calls.  The tutorial will cover that when I make it later on.  We also had a meeting with professor Rodger today.  We discussed the workshop coming up next week.  She advised us as to what are schedules are going to be like. Basically two of us will have to come early and two of us will have to stay later.  She also told us that there was another workshop going on in Mississippi and judging from their rate of progress, the camp should not be moving very fast so we should produce our material accordingly.

 

Developing Algorithmic Thinking With Alice

 

This article is a presentation of how Alice, a 3-D virtual world developing environment can encourage learning how to produce algorithms. It reports that computer literacy is continuously evolving. Also being able to understand the concept of algorithms will always be a part of being computer literate especially in respects to being a programmer.  It also mentions other software that have the same goals as Alice.  Specifically, XTANGO, BALSA, Karel the Robot are a few that they outline.  According to the article, Alice is following the tradition of Karel the Robot; accept Alice uses a 3-D virtual world environment.  The reading continues to describe how to create an Alice world and how to approach solving a problem using Alice.  Lastly, it points out some observations and features of using Alice.  Briefly, a few benefits outlined are, immediate feedback; animations can be run at any time to display how an instruction affects the objects, enjoyment, state; traditionally it is not necessary to create variables, collaborative learning; students can work together to improve their worlds, and natural language; the Alice code very much resembles the English language, which makes it easy to understand the intentions of a line of code.

 

Friday 6/13 -

 

I spent the entire day putting finishing touches and refining code for the three projects I have been working on.  The projects were used as tools for me to learn Alice.  I feel that they helped a lot.  I am now comfortable building my own world and coding it to do what I want.  I began my first tutorial today as well.  The tutorial is on arrays.  It also touches base with a lot of other little concepts such as loops, 3 – D text, making a bill board, asking users for input.  We also had a meeting with professor Rodger.  She spoke about logistics of what we will be doing on Monday.  We talked about parking passes, lunch time, and other details relating to the schedule of events

                                                                      

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Week of 6/16 - 6/20 (Week 3)

 

Monday -

 

Today is the first day of the workshop. I arrived at work a little earlier then usual because Professor Rodger needed some extra help in the morning. She wanted to make sure everything ran smoothly so the workshop can start on time.  Once the teachers were all here, they received a lecture and did some simple exercises.  We assisted them with any questions they had and gave them pointers on things they didn’t quite understand. Once I had some free time I managed to complete my tutorial on arrays.  Jenna, my coworker is reviewing it to make sure that it isn't too confusing.  She will also give suggestions on how to make it better.  Here are some screen shots of the program.

 

 

Intro to Array Program Initial scene 

 

 

Alice Editor window with some of the code for the Array Program

 

Tuesday –

 

Jenna finished reviewing my tutorial.  I made the changes she suggested while the teachers were doing some morning exercises with Alice.  I was called over by different teachers when they had questions.  I am really enjoying playing the role of teaching assistant.  I feel like I am actually helping these teachers learn something that they could potentially inject into their curriculum.  This is a very rewarding feeling.  I am slow at updating my journal and website since I really don’t have much free time.  For now, I am just making small updates and changes when ever I get a little free time.  I read another background article on Alice as well.  Below is a brief summary.

 

Using Visualization To Teach Novices Recursion

  

The authors of this article present the argument that Alice, the 3D – Virtual Worlds Environment, can be used to teach novice programmers the difficult concept of recursion.  They explain how it can be argued that Alice does not really do actual recursion, but Alice can give students an intuition so they can grasp the concept with much less difficulty.  To sum up the article they describe how Alice uses an approach that involves visualization, experimentation, and mathematical explanation.

 

Wednesday  –

 

I am really looking forward to the group lunch with the Computer Science department today.  Jeff Phillips will give a quick presentation of the graduate work he is doing at Duke University.  He will be speaking about Approximation and Random Sampling in Computational Geometry.  I arrived to LSRC, the building where the workshop is, at normal time.  There wasn’t much to do early on so I  caught up on my journal entries and background readings. After some time the teachers began working on their Alice worlds and they had questions.  They kept all of us pretty busy for most of the day.  Lunch time came around and we all headed up to the North Building for the group lunch.  The presentation by Jeff Phillips ran smoothly.  It was nice to see into the life of a grad student.  I enjoy the getting a quick insight on what he is actually working on since some day I plan to be doing the same type of work.  It was pretty interesting to see that there was a lot of math involved in his research.  

 

Thursday –

 

I have gotten into a routine.  Arrive at work around eight am and do some code in Alice.  Help the teachers by answering any questions that they have.  The days are going by really quickly.  The Alice workshop is really fun; I can tell the teachers are really enjoying the new programming tool.  The free breakfast and lunch is great.  Professor Rodger did a great job coordinating the event. I feel honored to be a part of it all. I worked on creating a world that presents a 3-D model of a helium atom.  I finished it, and created a power point to explain all the parts of it and how to write some simple code to make the electrons revolve around the nucleus.  Here is a screen shot 

 

 

The Alice environment and a running world window

 

Friday –

 

Today there was an animation fest where the teachers presented the Alice world’s that they created.  They did a great job, the world they created very impressive.  It was interesting to see that in just a short time they came up with their own unique ways to coordinate Alice and their individual curriculums.  This was significant especially considering they were totally new using Alice. During the day, I was able to complete a tutorial on lists that professor Rodger suggested I build.  They will be learning how to create lists next week.  I was also able to read another article.  Here is a brief summary.

 

 

Objects: Visualization of Behavior and State

 

Wanda Dann, Toby Dragon Computer Science Dept, Ithaca College, wpdann@ithaca.edu

Stephen Cooper, Kevin Dietzler, Kathleen Ryan, Computer Science Dept. scooper@sju.edu

Randy Pausch Computer Science Dept. Carnegie Mellon University,pausch@cs.cmu.edu

 

This article provides a thorough explanation how the use of Alice, the 3-D virtual worlds environment, allows professors to teach novice program important concepts involved with Object Oriented Programming.  Once of those concepts is inheritance.  It states, class level methods demonstrates this abstract property of objects.  Also, class variables can track the state of objects throughout the life of the program.  The article covers how traditional teaching of objects can involved complicated memory maps. Students would then spend time deciphering a graphical representation rather then actually understanding objects.  The following section describes behaviors of objects and how world level and class level methods can be used to visually change the behavior objects in a world.  Another significant point addressed is syntactical type errors are avoided because of Alice’s smart editor that uses pre-made statements to create code.  The latter portion of the reading covers, functions, parameters and state variables. Lastly, there is a brief mention of a study funded by the National Science Foundation.  The complete results are not reported; just a few comments by participants of the study are presented.        

 

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Week of 6/23 - 6/27  (week 4)

Wednesday-