The Squeak Defeat?
Jill Elberson, Elaine Witkowski · 2013
We were first introduced to Alice in 2007. We went to a workshop at Georgia Tech and tried to understand how Java worked with Alice. This was just a little too much for us. We then attended first Adventures in Alice Programming Workshop offered at Duke in 2008 for three weeks of training to learn Alice. We both worked in computer labs in Randolph County, different schools, and began teaching Alice to our students. Witkowski had an afterschool Technology Club and Elberson had an AA class in the mornings. Witkowksi's students made videos and games during her club time and also had a field trip to the Duke immersive Virtual Environment (DiVE) at Duke University. Elberson's groups were creating and learning from each other very quickly and created wonderful animations also. We presented Alice at NCTIES. Two years ago, both our jobs changed and Witkowski is back at her middle school and Elberson is in Onslow County and now addressing Alice 2.3 versus Squeak software. Onslow County is working with UNCW in the Squeak Initiative. Students are using Squeak software, and now we are introducing Alice to the same students. There is an equally distributed amount of boys to girls in this academically gifted class. There is also a stronger interest and success rate with the girls than the boys. The project is to determine which software the students prefer and also which gender prefers which software.