Students will be introduced to the programming language Scratch developed by MIT.   In this lesson students will use Scratch to develop 4 basic programs.

Dowload Scratch

http://scratch.mit.edu/

Students will be provided with the tools to create their own sprites using Scratch.  This lesson sets the tone that computer programming is not a tedious, specialized activity, accessible only to those with advanced technical training.

With the much anticipated excitement of making their own first game in Scratch the students will eagerly work through the introduction of computer programming logic.

Students will explore the history of the Pong Game  then students will have the opportunity to create their own pong game using Scratch.   Students will identify programming concepts that relate to their game of pong.

Students will enjoy one of the most popular progamming concepts in gaming which is learning to fire an object.  Students will review the design editor feature to create a dragon.  The students will also create a red object which will be fire and a blue object which will be ice.  The dragon will broadcast fire and ice.

In this lesson students will have the opportunity to create a Scratch project from an original idea to a completed program.  Students will first submit a project proposal that will be teacher approved.  This is the first part of a two part lesson.

This is the 2nd part of a 2 part Project Lesson.  The students will complete the project they began in  Scratch Intro #6.  Students will have already completed a project proposal that the teacher has approved and the students will have already began work on their project with a partner.  In Scratch Intro #7 students will complete their project.

In this lesson, students will be introduced to the Alice Programming Environment with emphasis on accessing and installing the Alice software and navigating the Alice Interface.

From the Alice.org Web site:

Alice is an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a teaching tool for introductory computing. It uses 3D graphics and a drag-and-drop interface to facilitate a more engaging, less frustrating first programming experience.

The name Alice from "Getting Started with Alice":

Alice was named in honor of Charles Lutwidge Dodson, an English matician and logician who wrote under the pen name Lewis Carroll. Carroll wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

Dann, Wanda, Stephen Cooper, and Randy Pausch. "Getting Started with Alice." Learning to Program with Alice. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009. 8. Print.