Alice Programming: Week 1

I have completed my first full week of Alice programming training.  Most of the week consisted of completing various tutorials to learn the basics of Alice programming.  Here is the link to the tutorials, along with a list of what we accomplished each day:

http://www.cs.duke.edu/csed/alice/aliceInSchools/workshop11/twoweek.php  

Due to the variety of technical skills throughout the participant group, I found myself wasting a lot of time waiting for others to catch up.  I was a little disappointed about this aspect of the workshop. 

The best day of the workshop, by far, was the day I got to experience the Duke immersive Virtual Environment or, (DiVE).  Here is the link to the DiVE site:  http://vis.duke.edu/dive  Each of us had an opportunity to enter the “cave” and experience several virtual worlds. 

The first world placed us on a mountain.  We became a girl, whose obstacle was to cross a dilapidated, wooden bridge.  It was a long fall down from the bridge into a hell-like world.  It was very scary, yet very exciting. 

Next, we got to experience what it was like to be inside a Wii game.  A paddle just appeared in my hand, and a green ball moved toward me.  Once I hit the ball, each panel in the distance disappeared as the ball struck it.  Once all the panels were gone, the level of that game was complete. 

The last world we experienced was the most unsettling to my stomach.  The engineer came into the room, and used something like a laser pointer to draw a bunch of lines all over the room.  Then he started the world, and we were riding the lines like we were on a roller coaster.  I had to take my special glasses off to keep from being sick.

This week has inspired me to appreciate and understand the power of virtual worlds, and how effective this tool can be in engaging digital natives in the classroom.