An objects-first strategy for teaching introductory computer science courses is receiving increased attention from CS educators. In this paper, we discuss the challenge of the objects-first strategy and present a new approach that attempts to meet this challenge. The new approach is centered on the visualization of objects and their behaviors using a 3D animation environment. Statistical data as well as informal observations are summarized to show evidence of student performance as a result of this approach. A comparison is made of the pedagogical aspects of this new approach with that of other relevant work.

This paper describes an approach for introducing recursion, as part of a course for novice programmers. The course is designed to make use of a 3-D animation world-builder as a visualization tool that allows students to see their own programs in action. One of the pedagogical goals of the course is to enable the student to gain an intuitive sense of and mathematical insight into the recursive process. The software, examples of animation using recursion, and some experiences in using this approach are discussed. What is Alice.'?Alice98 (www.alice.org) is a 3-D interactive graphics programming environment for Windows built by the Stage 3 Research Group at Carnegie Mellon University under the direction of Randy Pausch [15]. Alice offers a full scripting and prototyping environment for 3-D object behavior (e.g., animals

In this paper, we describe techniques of integrating the traditional, object-oriented console model with an object-oriented, event-driven model of programming in the first course. We present a design methodology successfully used to provide a transition from the console model to an event-driven model, relating both to problem-solving strategies.

A student internship in a suitable business or organization can augment, reinforce, and embellish material learned in the classroom. Computer Science student interns can experience such things as real-world development environments, projects which greatly exceed the scale of typical programming assignments, the utter importance of (possibly lacking) documentation, as well as diverse languages, operating systems, and hardware. Opportunities for such internships occur rarely, however, for many rural two-year colleges, especially those geographically isolated from companies which could provide this experience. Despite such a situation at our college, we still provide students with an internship experience by creating an internal organization: the Software Development Internship (SDI) with the mission to develop custom software for other departments on campus. In this paper we describe the formation of the SDI, its activities, and some of the benefits and lessons learned to date.