Click to access 2011_elizabeth_liang_final_thesis.pdf
Elizabeth Liang published this paper as a part of her CSURF project at Duke University and its content was very similar to Chris Brown and Professor Susan Rodger’s papers. She highlights the necessity for core subjects to be combined with technology since many curriculum requirements for K-12 education are being updated to create a foundation for students to continue their studies in CS education. Liang also mentions other projects similar to the Alice project – including Scratch and Robotics – which all work on integrating computing into core subjects. But because schools lack the resources and teachers don’t have enough time, it has been hard for teachers to implement CS into their lesson plans.
The Alice team at Duke University started in 2008, and researchers are working towards taking content from teachers’ lesson plans and updating them with materials that use Alice, which students can learn on their own or in classrooms. After students work on the beginner tutorials, they can use Alice to work on specific projects that focus on certain topics. Alternatively, they can view example worlds to see what other people have done with Alice. Researchers also can get feedback from teachers who take workshops so that they can further improve the tutorials and also create more tutorials.
Liang helped with creating tutorials and projects, specifically those that incorporated CS with science. Alice is especially effective in science because users can create interactive models in science to collect data and conceptualize science concepts. Currently in Alice there is a lack of objects that students can use to create such models, but Liang has created some tutorials and example worlds involving science. For example, she created a lac operon model with Alice and was also able to stimulate labs that were done in classrooms using Alice.
In the future, Liang advocates for educators to use Alice more extensively since it has had a positive impact on child learning. Additional steps to revise tutorials, gather more feedback, and have teachers attend follow-up workshops are also listed in her paper. She hopes that the creators of Alice can work on developing new charting applications and better visualizations like charting objects so that students can apply computing to subjects like science.
Alice Project 2014 