Piloting Alice in the Upper School Chari Distler North Broward - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Piloting Alice in the Upper School Chari Distler North Broward Preparatory School Meritas Family of Schools Coconut Creek. Florida

Alice at North Broward Prep  Middle School Grades 6-8  High School Grades 9-12 • Eager • Serious • Innovative • Competitive

Students Students are learning: Students are creating:  Computer programming  Animations  Vocabulary  Interactive Stories  Computational Thinking  Interactive Games  Sequential Thinking Students are feeling:  Logical Thinking  Excited about Alice  Design  Eager to learn more

Previous Experience  Instructor’s Background  Programming  15+ years teaching  No prior programming :  Computer Graphics  Education  Microsoft Applications  experience

Learning Alice  Adventures in Alice Prepared us with:  Two-week workshop  Knowledge  Sixty hour class  Materials  25 teachers  Resources  Learned Programming  Confidence  Introduced to Animation  Created Lesson Plans  Feedback from:  Instructor  Other Teachers

Introducing Alice No formal introduction to students, parents and faculty.  Middle School  High School  Independent Study  6 th Grade Class  Same Classroom  Grades 9-12  7 th & 8 th Grade Class  Tutorials  Fine Arts Elective  Approved Worlds  12 week elective  course title  Academic Projects  Course title “Alice” 1. Alice 2. Introduction to  “Introduction to Alice Computer Programming Programming”  Administrative Support

Girls Enrolled in Alice  Our numbers are consistent with Goals major studies  Introduce Alice early in year  Girls were not as interested as boys  Show Alice as story telling tool  Offer Saturday workshops for 4 th and 5 th grade girls. NBPS Alice 2012- 2013 MS Boys MS Girls HS Boys HS Girls 2% 37% 48% 13%

Teaching Alice  12 week class We found that :  4 Classes a trimester  Middle school needs more  Teacher excitement practice exercises to master skills  Teacher gratification  Students enjoyed learning  Same curriculum for middle Alice school and high school  Students thought it was  Plan to: cool and fun  Teach same skills to middle  Final projects exceeded our school and high school  Change content for middle expectations school and high school.

Course Offerings Future Plans for Computer Science High School  Students can twelve take times  Java (only five count towards  Python graduation requirement]  Fulfill 1/5 Fine Arts graduation  AP Computer Science obligation  IB Computer Science  Looking into:  Alice as Math or Science Credit  Nine states currently allow CS classes as core academic  We are private school  Do not need to follow state guidelines

Alice in Academic Classes  Science  English  Layers of the earth  Book Review  Social Science  Give a book a different ending  Time Lines  Capture the main events of a novel  World Languages  Vocabulary Alice is an exciting alternative to PowerPoint's and poster boards…

Enrollment in Upper School 2012-2013 MS MS HS Total HS Girls School Year Boys Girls Boys Students 26 7 20 1 54 Trimester 1 24 7 19 3 54 Trimester 2 Trimester 3 17 4 25 5 51 67 18 63 9 159 High School Middle School  Students very serious  Classes filled up quickly  Students ask very few questions  Students were excited  Projects not as creative as  Wanted to learn advanced Middle School material  Science Time Lines  Projects very innovative  Alice can figure out the number  IPad World between 1 and 100 you guessed  Music Videos in fewer than seven tries.  Interactive Worlds

Exemplar Link to Ipad Video on YouTube

SHARING ALICE Meritas Teachers College Best Practices • Innovation Day  Florida • Tech Thursday  Mexico  Texas Upcoming Conferences  Arizona  FCIS – Florida Council of  Nevada Independent Schools  Manhattan  NAIS - National Association  Switzerland of Independent Schools  5,100 Attendees  China  FETC – Florida Educational Technology Conference

Alice with Ms. Distler Webpage • Lessons • Files • Scenarios • Assignments • Rubrics • Examples • Student Work

PERSONAL FINDINGS Accomplishments Challenges  Learning Alice  Learning Alice  Teaching Slice  My Classroom  Alice Paper  Installing Alice on Personal Computers  Support from Administration and Colleagues

Goals  Saturday classes for 4 th and 5 th grade girls  Introduce Alice to every middle school student  Share with other schools  Learn more…

Acknowledgements  Adventures in Alice  Professor Rodger  National Science Foundation  IBM  My Students

End and Send Link To: Alice NBPS Style

Thank You…