Alice 3 to Java: Learning Creative Programming through Storytelling and Gaming

About the Book

A unique teaching approach supports student development

• A creative problem-solving approach is used throughout the book, which incorporates some elements of design thinking that starts with understanding and analyzing a problem (a challenging task), involves experimentation, and expects design and implementation changes.
• The enhanced animation capability provided by Alice 3 through a library of built-in classes, visually embodied by unique 3D models (characters and props), covers a wide range of stories and cultures. In addition to their visual appeal, Alice’s Gallery classes provide features to jumpstart student animation programming, including built-in animation methods.
• A main narrative throughout the book leads students through the creation of animations and interactive games adapted from episodes of Lawrence Prenderghast’s Haunted Circus, a story by Laura Paoletti. In between the chapters of the textbook are episodes of an unfolding story about a mysterious, haunted circus train, a cast of unique characters, and the adventurous task of lifting a magic spell from a troupe of circus performers.
• Software features and instructional material support the transition to a production-level language (Java), in response to the requests of hundreds of instructors who participate in our online Alice Educators List.
• Several chapters are devoted to providing assistance to the instructor and students for building on the concepts learned in Alice to make a successful transition to Java.
• Some features of Alice 3 have also been improved to provide a close correlation between Alice and Java’s object-oriented concepts.

Pedagogic features enhance understanding

• New terms are introduced in bold blue print.
• A list of new terms is provided at the end of each chapter and in the index.
• A summary is presented at the end of each chapter.
• A set of concept questions is provided in each chapter.
• Exercises are provided in each chapter. In most chapters, exercises are included for extending and enriching the example problem task for that chapter.
• Project ideas are provided for later chapters, after students have experience with the Alice and NetBeans IDEs.
• An optional capstone project is presented in the Epilogue.