ENGAGE WITH JAVA
Thursday Jun 04, 2009
Alice and BlueJ / Greenfoot at JavaOne
It is fun week at JavaOne! It was great to have both Alice and BlueJ / Greenfoot teams at Change (Y)our World Playground!
Here's what some other blogs and bloggers are saying Alice -
- Alice Team at JavaOne; 3.0 Beta Released
- Java One 2009 Day 0
- Felipe Gaucho's Blog: Alice in the JavaLand by Carnegie Melon University
- JavaOne 2009: Seventh Annual Duke’s Choice Awards Spotlights 2009’s Most Innovative Java Technology Applications
Posted at 09:43PM Jun 04, 2009 by Jessica in Sun | Comments[0]
Monday Jun 01, 2009
CommunityOne and JavaOne This Week!
The Alice team and the BlueJ / Greenfoot team will be at CommunityOne West and JavaOne this week! Come by the Change (Y)our World Playground on the Pavilion floor to talk to the teams.
The Alice team just released Alice 3.beta.0055 - download it today at alice.org. JavaOne attendees, please come by the team's booth to learn about how to participate in the Alice Film Festival! And, lastly, developers can check out the Alice project on Kenai to learn more about how to get involved!
Greenfoot fans - the Greeps are back! Please stop by and talk to the BlueJ / Greenfoot team about participating in the Greeps Return!
See you all at CommunityOne West and JavaOne. Follow JavaOneConf on Twitter for news and updates!
Posted at 08:30AM Jun 01, 2009 by Jessica in Sun | Comments[0]
Friday May 01, 2009
Bring Your Daughters & Sons to Work Day at Sun
So, this week I had my first opportunity to work with Alice and children. Up until then I had been demonstrating Alice to my fellow co-workers at Sun - all adults. I was excited to have my first opportunity to share this cool technology with young people!
It was a great experience! There were over 100 students (age 8-13) that visited Sun last Thursday in the middle part of the day and about 100 students (age 14-19) in the late afternoon. I was lucky to have two volunteers helping me - my coworker Sarah Hammond and Sun systems engineer and Alice enthusiast Dan Green. For the younger children we worked with Alice 2.0 and the students worked together to create some amazingly imaginative stories! In the afternoon, I demonstrated Alice 2.0 to the older students and then Dan showed them Alice 3 Beta and Greenfoot. He then answered a barrage of questions, starting with "Can post something I create using Alice on my MySpace page?"
Here's a cool video that summarizes what the younger students did at Sun last Thursday:
Posted at 05:08PM May 01, 2009 by Jessica in Sun | Comments[0]
Wednesday Apr 01, 2009
Sun Employee Talks About Volunteer Efforts on Java Mobility Podcast!
Sun employee Dan Green talks about using Alice, Greenfoot, BlueJ, and other tools to get kids excited about computers.
On the weekends Dan volunteers by teaching computer clubs in his local community.
Posted at 09:52AM Apr 01, 2009 by Jessica in Sun | Comments[0]
Monday Mar 16, 2009
At SIGCSE with Alice and BlueJ / Greenfoot
SIGCSE 09 was a great experience! The Alice team from Carnegie Mellon University and the BlueJ / Greenfoot team from the University of Kent and Deakin University joined us at the Sun booth.
The Greenfoot team's The Greeps Return competition brought a great deal of energy to the booth. It was fun to see contest participants come by the booth and run their Greep class against the House Greeps in an attempt to get the highest score.
There was a great deal of excitement around Alice 3.0 Beta! The Alice team demoed this software to a packed crowd at The Alice Tea Party on Friday. The reception from educators was great -- everyone was excited to see the SIMs in Alice!
Lastly, on Friday night Sun hosted a fun reception at the Chattanoogan. The evening was an open format and it was great to hear the different people share their experiences.
Posted at 11:33AM Mar 16, 2009 by Jessica in Sun | Comments[0]
Tuesday Feb 24, 2009
SIGCSE! Next Week!
This week I've been making final preparations for the SIGCSE conference in Chattanooga, TN.
The Alice Development Team and the BlueJ / Greenfoot Development Team will be at the Sun booth -- so stop by!
- Birds-of-a-Feather: Teaching with Alice
Thursday, 6:10 pm to 6:55 pm
Location: Marriott Plaza AB - Alice Tea Party!
Friday, 11:45 am to 1:30 pm
Location: Marriott Plaza AB - Paper session: Engaging Middle School Teachers and Students with Alice in a Diverse Set of Subjects
Friday, 1:30 pm to 2:45 pm
Location: Ballroom F - Workshop: Alice 3 & Java for CS1 & AP CS
Friday, 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm
Location: Ballroom H - Workshop: Exploring Wonderland: Teaching with Alice and Media Computation
Saturday, 2:15pm-5:15pm
Location: Ballroom I
- The Third BlueJ / Greenfoot Day
Wednesday, 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm
Location: Marriott, room Plaza A - Workshop 1: Greenfoot - Introducing Java With Games & Simulations
Wednesday, 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm
Location: Meeting Room 2
Posted at 03:49PM Feb 24, 2009 by Jessica in Sun | Comments[0]
Wednesday Jan 28, 2009
Getting Started with Java Technology Articles - BlueJ / Greenfoot
I wanted to share a few articles about using Greenfoot and BlueJ on the Sun Developer Network's New to Java Programming Center.
Greenfoot
BlueJ
Posted at 06:30PM Jan 28, 2009 by Jessica in Sun | Comments[0]
Monday Jan 26, 2009
The World is Getting Smaller
The title of the post seems to be the theme of my day. I am a marketer and often read and share information on blogs and other social media forums. One of the things that I find so fascinating about the world wide web is how very similar ideas and opinions are often shared by many geographically dispersed individuals. The world is getting smaller. Today I found some interesting blogs about Alice and Greenfoot written by individuals from around the world. Here's one that I really enjoyed reading:
Aneneo Blog Site >> Teaching the love of programming!
This blog was written by an educator from the Philippines. I thought the last sentence in this blog posting was really cool:
"My point, though, it that these programs are free, they have support materials, and they’re fun. They are great new ways of teaching programming."
Yes, I agree! Alice and Greenfoot are fun! And using them has helped me learn more about the Java programming language!
But, back to my point: The world is getting smaller. One of the best things about Alice and Greenfoot is that they can be downloaded free of charge from the web. Because of this, these tools are available to everyone everywhere. Accessible to anyone who wants to learn! I think this is really cool!
Posted at 01:10PM Jan 26, 2009 by Jessica in Sun | Comments[0]
Friday Jan 16, 2009
Welcome
Welcome to the Engage with Java blog!
So, what is Engage with Java?
At Sun we are committed to helping students learn about technology. The Engage with Java initiative is our effort to collaborate with universities and share some really innovative teaching technologies with the world.
To learn about projects we collaborating on, check out the links below:
Check back soon for more information and news!
Posted at 11:11AM Jan 16, 2009 by Jessica in Sun | Comments[0]