Today is the last day of our workshop! I had a great time, and it was awesome to see how much the teachers learned over the course of two weeks.
We gave the teacher a post test and then had them present their lesson plans for the rest of the day.
The teachers created an Alice world to thank us – it was very nice!
The teachers spent the morning finishing up their worlds.
During lunch, I took a couple of teachers to Cameron Indoor Stadium.
In the afternoon, the some of the teachers presented their lesson plans – some of them are really impressive!
Professor Rodger had to give a talk in Greensboro so Samantha, Yossra and I are in charge for today until lunch. We went over the Changing Camera Views tutorial and they seemed to get it pretty well. All lot of the problems deal setting up the scene and positioning the objects.
Then for the rest of the day, we worked on teacher lesson plans. A lot of them are still having trouble with the fade in and fade out, as well as understanding camera views and dummy objects.
Tomorrow we start presenting lesson plans!!!
Majority of the day was spent on lesson plans. We did the Repetition Everywhere tutorial and most of the teachers were able to do them by themselves.
We also took the teachers to the Duke DiVE thing – the immersive virtual reality world. I also got a chance to experience it for myself it was pretty cool!
Some of the teachers are having trouble understanding the camera views and different scenes and knowing how to tie all the different pieces together. In addition, some of them are having trouble understanding how to move from scene to scene and how moving a character in one scene will affect his or her movements in the next scene if it is moving.
In the morning, Professor Richard Lucic came and talked to the teachers about VCL and how they can use that to have teachers access Alice on their phones or tablets. Kathy Menchaca, the program director, is also here this week to help out.
Yossra taught the teachers the BDE tutorial and most of them seemed to understand how the while event works.
I also taught the Simple Quiz tutorial and the teachers had quite some difficulty with it. I think a big part was that I forgot a slide in the beginning, and also some of the teachers are still having difficulty navigating Alice and knowing where the methods and functions are. I also had to do some improvising – the teachers wanted to create while loops for the second and third question and there were some minor bugs in our code. But I printed out the code and we can add it to our website later for the teachers to see.
At lunch I demoed my Photosynthesis world and Collision Tutorial.
In the afternoon, we let the teachers start working on their their lesson plans. Some of the teachers want to create lesson plans for science classes and finance worlds that they asked for help with. One of the teachers is creating a world dealing with independent and dependent variables, but has some trouble with creating the user input. But I’ve been helping her. Another teacher is creating a world for a Red Riding Hood story, and is having difficulty with camera views. I’m excited to see their final products.
Fewer teachers are needing assistance, which is awesome!
The first thing we did was work on a parameters world challenge. A lot of the teachers had trouble understanding the differences between parameters and variables and how to use them. In addition, none of them used lists in solving their challenge, but it was understandable since we didn’t teach them how to. Some of them had the idea to use lists, but didn’t know how to implement it into their Alice world.
We went over the broccoli tutorial and there are still some difficulty with understanding parameters, but with extra practice, they’ll get it.
Steve Cooper, a professor from Stanford, came and showed some of the stuff that he has been working on with his students and at his workshops. He also taught some minor tutorials for making folders in Alice and little tips that make working with Alice easier.
During lunch, I helped a teacher work on her world to change colors for objects – there are some objects in Alice that don’t change color, but we based the world on the scene change tutorial with storing colors and changing them.
After lunch we went over the fancier chicken tutorial. Some of the teachers still have trouble knowing which methods to edit (world or object), but they all thought they importing the fancier chicken was pretty cool.
Today, we first went over the Changing Colors tutorial and finding out which object is shorter. The teachers were able to remember the If/Else statement but some had difficult with nesting the If/Else statement or not. They learned how to use the Return function and some of them thought the tutorial was pretty difficult, but liked how they could change the color of the objects. When creating new variables, some of the teachers created local variables and parameters rather than a global variable.
We worked some more on the Princess and Dragon activity, some of them are still working on it and other people are . Some of them still are having difficulty differentiating between methods and events and others are having trouble understanding the concept of camera views. I helped some of them during lunch.
We also went through the List tutorial and used the web gallery to access the evil ninjas. Many of the teachers stated that this tutorial was a lot easier than the one we did in the morning. Yossra taught that tutorial.
The very last thing that we did was go through the Scene Change tutorial. Many were able to get the tutorial and changing the scenes with the Fade In and Out, but I had to help two of the teachers individually because they were behind. It’s really exciting to see how excited they get when they accomplish each tutorial.
In the morning, I taught the How Tall Are You Tutorial, which goes over If/Else statements and functions. I think it went pretty well, the teachers were able to follow along pretty well.
Afterwards, Professor Rodger went over the Kangaroo Tutorial and the Headshots Tutorial. Many of the teachers complain about the Camera Views and figuring out how to position the billboards, which is pretty hard. Some of them also mentioned that they though that the Headshots tutorials was the easiest tutorial that they have done.
Samantha also taught the Texture Maps tutorial, and many of them had difficult attaching the heads to the bodies. A lot of them are getting the hang of Alice, but some of them still need some refreshers.
In the afternoon, we worked on the Princess an Dragon tutorials, and they asked for help. A lot of them had questions regarding vehicles and setting Camera Views. Additionally, figuring out how to make the Princess curtsey has been difficult since the Princess doesn’t have a lower body.
In the morning, we finished up Parts 1 and 2 of the Princess and Dragon tutorial. Some of the teachers are still having difficulty with camera views and positioning the objects. Additionally, they have difficulty between understanding the one-time methods versus putting it in the methods editor. I think that the teachers are getting Alice, though, which is pretty exciting.
We had a new teacher join us, and I helped her get caught up this morning as well.
During our lunch break, I took some of the teachers around Duke and we visited the chapel and even got to go inside. They started playing the organs, which were really pretty.
In the afternoon, Yossra taught Part 3 of the Princess and Dragon tutorial. Many of them had trouble locating the files. After each part, we gave the teachers assessments, and after the workshop we will tally up the answers and look at the teachers’ feedback.
For the rest of the afternoon, we let the teachers do some story board planning and create their own world. We have to review their story boards before they continue creating their world. I’m excited to see what they’ll come up with.
Today was the first day of our beginner workshop – and it was a lot of work, but fun. I think it’s awesome that so many teachers are here to learn Alice to teach their students. There are actually two teachers from my high school, and one from Korea!
In the morning, we helped teachers find parking and the workshop. Additionally, I helped a teacher relocate her car to the BC garage.
We went over some logistics and then covered the Shark Attack! tutorial – the teachers had a lot of fun with, but many of them still needed help. Some had issues with the zip files and downloading and opening up the files. Many had issues with camera setting and moving their objects and some had trouble grasping the interactive aspect of Alice.
We then gave them the assessment tutorial that Yossra made – many of the teachers needed help finding the positioning objects, and a couple of them didn’t know that the methods were already created for them, and were trying to create their own methods. Additionally, some of the files had a messed up AliceView, and I had to adjust them to be the right view. A couple of them were able to complete it with other teachers on their own, though.
For the last part of the day, we started the Princess and Dragon tutorial. Many of the teachers are getting Alice, which is good.
Alice Project 2014 