AMANDA GILBERT Bridging the Gap: Storytelling Alice as a Precursor to Python

Abstract Cardinal Forest Elementary School 4 th Grade (13 Girls: 3 Boys) How well does Storytelling Alice teach the concepts necessary for students to advance to other languages? Can Storytelling Alice adequately prepare these students for success in Python? What are the differences in the two languages? Where is there overlap?

Introduction Drag-and-drop programming environment, transition to individual coding Python Shells Programming environment centered on graphics, transition to non-visual environment

Background Storytelling Alice developed by Caitlin Kelleher at Carnegie Mellon University Kelleher targeted middle-school-aged girls Boys and girls views on “ideal technology” is significantly different Diversity is important in technology

Background Syntax errors and invisible state not an issue in Alice (are an issue in Python) Looping, conditional statements, methods, parameters, variables, arrays and recursion can all be taught using Alice. Retention rate almost doubled after an introductory Alice class (for at-risk college students)

Development: Project One Taught the children how to create a world (create a scene in Storytelling Alice) This project took a couple classes All children got some important concepts from this lesson: how to create a setting and how to add objects and scale/move them accordingly.

Project One

Development: Project Two This was the first introduction to creating a method Do In Order/Do Together Values taught in class: Number, String, Boolean, Object

Development: Project Two

Development: Quiz One Tested children’s abilities to form their own control statements and methods They were given the methods/control statements and the order they were to go in and they had to write them in the brackets This tests their ability to create programs on their own

Development: Project Three This project combined all skills so far The kids created a world Started with a story, picked out the setting and characters Created code using control statements and values

Development: Project Three

Development: Project Four This project was the most important thus far Guess that Number combined many concepts we have already learned, while teaching two new ones:  Loop  If/Else This was the first project I attempted with the kids in Python.

Development: Project Four

Results and Conclusions All students advanced to Python in the fourth quarter. I have revised my teaching and assessing methods:  Journals  Worksheets  Student interaction in class

Results and Conclusions: Quiz One Quiz one results: Very Proficient: 80% -100% correct Proficient: 50%-80% correct Not Very Proficient: 20%-50% correct Not At All Proficient: 0%-20% correct There were 5 perfect tests out of 16 (31.25%)

Results and Conclusions: Quiz One

Results and Conclusions: Quiz Two Less Successful than I had hoped for Combination of fill in the blanks and coding Kids were confused as to how to write code without the drag-and-drop interface Showed that we needed to work on coding without the reliance on Alice’s environment Modified my teaching after this to include more coding on the white board and drilling of concepts before working in Alice.

Results and Conclusions: Quiz Two

Results and Conclusions: Journal Many kids were scared of the concept of quizzes New assessment method: journals Gave kids 20 minutes to write a response to the project they had completed (project four) Most kids were able to describe concepts they learned with the lesson.

Results and Conclusions: Journal Example

Results and Conclusions: Comments Worksheet This graph shows each child’s score on the worksheet

Results and Conclusions: Quiz 3– Breakdown by Question

Python Project 1: Guess that Number (Basic) Shell with 3 missing lines of code Same code completed with Storytelling Alice

Python Project 2: Guess that Number (modified) Shell with modifications New code tells the user if he/she guessed too high/low Caroline’s modification

Results Storytelling Alice is an effective start for young kids Python is a good language for the first non-visual language beginners encounter Longer time on Storytelling Alice or a later start for Python (maybe middle school)