About Alice

Alice is a computer programming environment which is a fun and interactive way to discover computer programming. computer grafics made from the alice program The main purpose of Alice is to be an instructional tool for students from middle school and beyond, introducing them to object-oriented programming concepts. Through creating animations for storytelling, simple interactive games, and for videos students can learn about core programming concepts. 3-D objects including people, animals and vehicles, are placed in a virtual world where the user can drag and drop instruction blocks to create a program and see how their animation is progressing.

The Carnegie Mellon University is continually developing Alice and is committed to generously providing it free of charge to everyone. The drag and drop structure is similar to programming languages like Java, C++, and C#, and helps students make a direct connection between changes in the programming and the change in the animation.

Alice at Duke

Adventures in Alice Programming

The National Science Foundation is working on integrating the Alice program into the middle and high schools in the Durham, NC area. Duke University has been holding workshops and conferences over the last few years for teachers and students. They have also been developing instruction material, examples and lesson plans to help teachers integrate Alice into their classrooms.

The adventures in Alice Programming project is supported by the National Science Federation as well as IBM. Other regions that this program includes:

  • Virginia Beach, Virginia
  • San Jose, California
  • Denver, Colorado
  • Charleston, South Carolina
  • Oxford, Mississippi