Carnegie Mellon and Sun Microsystems support Alice was the key research project of Randy Pausch

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Anne Watzman <aw16 () andrew cmu edu>
Date: November 19, 2008 9:43:33 AM EST
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Carnegie Mellon and Sun Mic

Dave, Would this be something for IP?  So many people are interested  
in all
things Pausch. Thanks for considering.  Anne



Contact: Anne Watzman
For immediate release:
412-268-3830            November 19, 2008
aw16 () andrew cmu edu

Byron Spice
412-268-9068
bspice () cs cmu edu

Carnegie Mellon and Sun Microsystems Collaborate To Support
Continued Development of Alice Programming Environment

PITTSBURGH— Sun Microsystems, Inc., is teaming up with Carnegie Mellon
University to support the continuing development of Alice, the  
university’s
innovative, Java technology-based computer programming environment that
teaches students to program Java software while having fun creating 3D
animations, stories and video games.

Alice is an object-oriented, open source system developed over the  
last 10
years that is provided free to educators and students by the  
university. It
features a drag and drop interface that allows students to create 3D
environments and populate them with a wide variety of easy to program
objects and characters. Because it’s based on open development  
principles,
it encourages users and teachers to share knowledge to improve teaching
methods and identify improvements to the software on which the system is
based.

Alice was the key research project of Randy Pausch, Carnegie Mellon’s
beloved professor of computer science, human-computer interaction and  
design
who died of pancreatic cancer last summer at the age of 47. Pausch spent
more than a decade of his career developing the program. He was able  
to see
a rough version of a new, enhanced Alice 3 just before he died.

Over the next three years, Sun Microsystems will work with Carnegie  
Mellon
to globalize Alice, providing the tools to translate it into different
languages and develop drag and drop artifacts unique to a variety of
cultures. Sun will work with the Alice development team to bring the  
system
to a worldwide audience of educators and students.

“The Alice team has done wonderful work over the last decade, making  
great
contributions to computer science education,” said Carnegie Mellon  
alumnus
James Gosling, vice president and Sun Fellow who created the Java  
language.
”There’s no better investment we can make than in the education of the  
next
generation. I’m thrilled that we’re making this commitment.”

Today, it’s estimated that the current version — Alice- 2.0 — is being  
used
in 10 to 15 percent of U.S. colleges and universities, as well as a  
number
of high schools and middle schools. There is a version called  
“Storytelling
Alice” that is especially attractive to middle school girls, helping  
them to
become aware of the importance of computer science early in their
educational careers.

           A team of researchers headed by Associate Teaching Professor
Wanda P. Dann and lead developer and Project Scientist Dennis Cosgrove  
is
working around the clock to bring out Alice 3. Dann said that the  
support of
Sun will enable her group to debug and extend their rough version of the
system, increase the size of their team, speed up the development  
process
and produce a higher quality product.

           “Sun’s participation will provide our team with the  
technical
resources we need to bring the development of Alice 3 to completion  
over the
next three years,” Dann said. “We will bring out a full release of  
Alice 3
and follow that with the development of application programming  
interfaces
that will make it useful in all STEM disciplines, including computer
science.” Dann said that Alice 3 also will make it easier for teachers  
using
Alice to move their students into Java software.

           Alice 3 also will feature essential arts assets from a  
version
of “The Sims™” — one of the best selling PC video games of all time —  
which
were given as a gift to the research team in 2006. The Sims content  
helps to
transform the Alice software from a crude, 3-D programming tool into a
compelling and user-friendly programming environment.

           “Alice 3 is a major advance over the 2.0 version” said Peter
Lee, professor and head of the Computer Science Department in Carnegie
Mellon’s School of Computer Science. “It retains the attractive,  
intuitive
interface that motivates students to write computer programs almost  
without
knowing it. At the same time, it provides a pathway to learning
industrial-strength Java software programming. For many, this will be a
great ticket to upward mobility.”

           The Alice Project has been supported in the past by the  
National
Science Foundation, DARPA, Intel, Microsoft and SAIC, as well as  
Electronic
Arts, Google, General Dynamics, the Heinz Foundation and the Hearst
Foundation. For more information about the Alice project, see
http://www.alice.org. Carnegie Mellon makes downloads of the Alice  
software
available at no cost at www.alice.org <http://www.alice.org> .

###

About Carnegie Mellon: Carnegie Mellon is a private research  
university with
a distinctive mix of programs in engineering, computer science,  
robotics,
business, public policy, science and social science, fine arts and the
humanities. More than 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students  
receive an
education characterized by its focus on creating and implementing  
solutions
for real problems, interdisciplinary collaboration, and innovation. A  
small
student-to-faculty ratio provides an opportunity for close interaction
between students and professors. While technology is pervasive on its
144-acre Pittsburgh campus, Carnegie Mellon is also distinctive among
leading research universities for the world-renowned programs in its  
College
of Fine Arts. A global university, Carnegie Mellon has campuses in  
Silicon
Valley, Calif., and Qatar, and programs in Asia, Australia and Europe.  
For
more, see www.cmu.edu <http://www.cmu.edu> .







--Anne Watzman, director
Media Relations
School of Computer Science
412-268-3830







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