COMPUTER SKILLS FREE TUTORIALS
TEACHING KIDS COMPUTER PROGRAMMING
TEACHING KIDS COMPUTER PROGRAMMING
A.L.I.C.E .
I loved teaching and being creative in order to teach my students to understand difficult concepts or to help them begin to think about things a bit differently. So, I'd come up with comical ways to remember Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs by advising them to think of them as "ham sandwich, home, honey, etc." and they'd smile, laugh and get it. They got it and I felt like a proud parent every time. When I make presentations, I ask people to, "Please, if you would, wiggle your ears for me right now." They stare at me in disbelief. I must be kidding, I know they're thinking. They may also be wondering what this has to do with my presentation. Again, it's to make a point. Teaching should be fun, provocative and engage students in the task without them really being aware they are actually learning. I recently learned that I shared this teaching method with the late Dr. Randy Pausch, so this page is dedicated to him and his team who carry on Dr. Pausch's "ALICE" Project that teaches kids computer programming.
Today, as I begin work on a new project of my own, I needed a boost, some motivation, something that would get me moving and I turned to Randy Pausch's lecture on motivation. It was one of the last lectures he would deliver before his untimely death in 2008. He reminded me, again, about the importance of teaching as he taught me that road blocks are there for reasons, mentors are there for guidance and support and voices of encouragement are always needed, even by the best of any of us. Be that mentor, that guiding voice, that cheerleader and provide your kids, whether your children or your students, with a chance to succeed. Remind all of them about Dr. Randy Pausch and "may the force be with you" in every way your journey takes you through life.
I'm including links to all of the ALICE (Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity ) Project that I can find in the hope that I can contribute to teaching kids how to program--painlessly. How does the project do it? It's so simple that kids don't even think much about it. One of Pausch's students wrote a program where kids just write stories and they're off and running with their programming skills. How easy is that? We can all use the skills, so if you're game, put your ego in your pocket, pretend you're a kid again and allow yourself to try, to make mistakes and to learn every step of the way. And, while you're at it, give a quiet thanks to Randy Pausch and get your local schools involved in using this methodology. You'll be doing the kids and the rest of us a great service.
How to play ALICE world in your web browser
ResearchChannel - The Alice Project: A different way to teach introductory computer science
A Preview of Alice 3.0 (uTube)
Helping Girls Learn to
Program
Make Your Own Movie with the Sims
Learning a second language isn't just an exercise without significant benefits for you or for kids. As long as you want to keep your mind sharp, keep learning and we now have powerful tools to make learning more immediate, creative and interesting. How does that happen? Try some of the new language software that's around. I don't usually recommend anything, but there is one program that I have found very helpful and not expensive. Go to their website and the other websites we will be adding here. My choice? Byki from Transparent Language.
World Language & Culture (free or shareware)
Indo-European Language Tutorials (free)
Whenever possible, I like to include sites that are of general use for software searches, especially ones that give you lots of choices and include freeware as well as shareware. We've avoided, wherever possible, programs that are "free to try" or "free downloads" because these are usually programs that have to be bought after you try them. So here's what I've found so far in a limited search:
Thunderbird (free e-mail software)
Free Software Directory (Free Software Foundation)
Source Forge (2,053 open source programs)
CNET freeware downloads (735)
Pazera MP4 to AVI converter (ipod to regular avi) freeware
Hands-free
computer software program (Vocal Joystick under construction)
Teaching Creativity to Children (Norway)
Thirteen for Kids (free video learning on-line)
Cosmology
On-line Course (Stanford University)
Cultural and Educational Video
Kahn University (free math tutoring)
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