Alice in Legoland

1
Alice in Legoland

• Team Leader Denise McBroom
• Team Members Laura Guilfoyle, Shirley Hall,
  Peter Mlot,
• Theresa Hopkins, Nellie
  Matlock

This material is based upon work supported by the
National Science Foundation under grant No.
EEC-0502174. Any opinions, findings, and
conclusions or recommendations expressed in this
material are those of the author(s) and do not
necessarily reflect the views of the National
Science Foundation.
2
Engineering Design

• The existing module addresses engineering by
  linking it to the process of designing a computer
  program.
• Specific questions relating to computer
  programming are included in the pre-test and
  post-test.
• The Concept Quiz includes matching relevant
  programming terms to their definitions to assess
  the students knowledge of computer programming.
• The Programming Pioneer activity encourages
  students to research famous computer engineers
  and learn more about engineering through these
  role models.

3
Scientific Inquiry

• There are ample opportunities for
  inquiry/discovery activities in the experiments
  with Legos and with the Alice computer software
  program.
• In the first activity, students must work
  together to decode instructions to create a
  specific figure with Legos.
• In the second activity, students are asked to
  create their own Lego figure and then create the
  programming code.
• In the Alice computer software program, students
  discover the importance of sequencing and the
  possibility of obtaining different results by
  changing the programming code.

4
Ethics

• There are questions concerning ethics, as it
  relates to computer programming, in the pretest.
• Ethics is also addressed in the discussion
  questions. For example, What would happen if
  Alice was sold to the public, or any other
  computer program, without being tested first?
• This discussion gives an opportunity to discuss a
  variety of ethics issues, including bugging.

5
Adaptation to Primary Grades

• The Alice computer software program would need to
  be modified, using pictorial instructions as well
  as written instructions, for it to be suitable
  for the lower primary grades. A modification of
  Alice would be the program Kidpix.
• The Legos instructions would need to be made
  simpler, to indicate directions rather than x and
  y coordinates, for the primary grades.
• 3. The Legos could also be used for symbolic
  representation of verbal commands to show
  sequencing, even in kindergarden. Also, snap
  cubes could be used to represent Legos or 1x1
  binary codes which would be easier to manipulate
  for children in the primary grades. Snap cubes
  are inexpensive as well.

6
Resource List

• New Way Things Work by Daniel Macaduley and Neil
  Ardley
• Magic School Bus, Program A Book About
  Computers, by Nancy White
• What is a Scientist, by Barbara Lehn
• Computer Graphic and Animation by Asha Kalbag
• Learning Computer Programming, CyberRookies
  Series by Mary Farrell

7
Adaptation to High School

• The module could be used as in introduction to
  basic computer programming at the high school
  level.
• After working with the Alice program, students
  could develop their own interactive 3-D computer
  program to accompany a story of their choosing.
• There could be more in-depth discussions and
  debates on ethics in computer technology.

8
Module Enhancement

• Lists of more books, Internet and computer
  software resources would be helpful on the topics
  introduced in the module, categorized by grade
  level.
• Develop teachers notes, including more detailed
  assessment tools and rubrics for the module.
• Emphasize the cross-curriculum links in the
  module to art, language arts, social studies,
  math and science.