Alice teaches kids to program using visuals

If one put animated movies and computer programming together in a sentence, the most common assumption is that it would have something to do with Pixar but nothing can be further from the truth as scientists at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a new software program called Alice which uses three-dimensional figures in a storyline, to attract students to the world of computer programming.

And this method of attracting students to computer programming could stem the sharp drop (almost 50 percent) in the number of computer science majors for the past seven years – especially among women.

While most computer programs use punctuation, numbers and alphabets to write “code”, this new method of learning involves manipulating their computer mouse to select from a gallery of characters and backgrounds.

Researchers are already considering this new program to be the perfect way to garner interest amongst pre-teen girls, and according to the feedback so far, this program seems to be doing the trick. Since the program is “visual” in nature, the kids do not know that they are actually programming, albeit using this unconventional method.

What is heartening about this project is that its developers are giving away this software as a free download at www.alice.org, and hopes that this will spark enough interest in girls everywhere just before they reach middle school.

So far, the developers do not know how many schools are using this program, but according to statistics from their site, there have been at least half a million downloads.

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