Alice

Alice is a free open source OOP programming language with an integrated development environment (IDE) that uses 3D models. Alice homepage The 3D models make it easy for anyone to create an animation for stories, games, etc... All you have to do is drag-and-drop what 3D model you want into the IDE program you are making. The instructions correspond to standard statements in a production OOP language. This can teach people OOP programming concepts much faster in Introduction Programming classes.

Students using Alice can better understand the relationship between code and the 3D models behaviors in the IDE. Here is promotional video about Alice. Video Site. Another great thing about Alice is that it is open source. Anyone can customize the Alice IDE program. All you have to do is follow the End User License Agreement. That is just legal stuff.

The future looks bright for Alice because of their partnership with Sun Microsystems Inc. Also the Alice developer team is improving Alice for the operating systems: Windows, Mac, and Linux. Teachers teaching programming should take advantage of this free educational software.

Note: don't confuse Alice with A.L.I.C.E. (Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity) which is a artificial intelligence chat robot open source program.