TY - GEN
T1 - Storytelling alice motivates middle school girls to learn computer programming
AU - Kelleher, Caitlin
AU - Pausch, Randy
AU - Kiesler, Sara
PY - 2007
Y1 - 2007
N2 - We describe Storytelling Alice, a programming environment that introduces middle school girls to computer programming as a means to the end of creating 3D animated stories. Storytelling Alice supports story creation by providing 1) a set of high-level animations, that support the use of social characters who can interact with one another, 2) a collection of 3D characters and scenery designed to spark story ideas, and 3) a tutorial that introduces users to writing Alice programs using story-based examples. In a study comparing girls' experiences learning to program using Storytelling Alice and a version of Alice without storytelling support (Generic Alice), we found that users of Storytelling Alice and Generic Alice were equally successful at learning basic programming constructs. Participants found Storytelling Alice and Generic Alice equally easy to use and entertaining. Users of Storytelling Alice were more motivated to program; they spent 42% more time programming, were more than 3 times as likely to sneak extra time to work on their programs, and expressed stronger interest in future use of Alice than users of Generic Alice.
AB - We describe Storytelling Alice, a programming environment that introduces middle school girls to computer programming as a means to the end of creating 3D animated stories. Storytelling Alice supports story creation by providing 1) a set of high-level animations, that support the use of social characters who can interact with one another, 2) a collection of 3D characters and scenery designed to spark story ideas, and 3) a tutorial that introduces users to writing Alice programs using story-based examples. In a study comparing girls' experiences learning to program using Storytelling Alice and a version of Alice without storytelling support (Generic Alice), we found that users of Storytelling Alice and Generic Alice were equally successful at learning basic programming constructs. Participants found Storytelling Alice and Generic Alice equally easy to use and entertaining. Users of Storytelling Alice were more motivated to program; they spent 42% more time programming, were more than 3 times as likely to sneak extra time to work on their programs, and expressed stronger interest in future use of Alice than users of Generic Alice.
KW - Alice
KW - Children
KW - Computer science education
KW - Gender
KW - Motivation
KW - Programming
KW - Programming environments
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/35348903305
U2 - 10.1145/1240624.1240844
DO - 10.1145/1240624.1240844
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:35348903305
SN - 1595935932
SN - 9781595935939
T3 - Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings
SP - 1455
EP - 1464
BT - Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2007, CHI 2007
PB - Association for Computing Machinery
T2 - 25th SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2007, CHI 2007
Y2 - 28 April 2007 through 3 May 2007
ER -