Alice to learn java?

Hey, I am just posting because my university class is using a visual program called alice to introduced the students to java. I am not sure what alice is or whether it is effective so I was wondering what you guys thought of the program and if this is a good introduction to the language. I know very little about it so if anyone can expand on what it does, that would be great.

Thank you.

I did take a c++ course prior to this and did very well.

Having a knowledge in C++ is enough (and OOP Concepts)....

You are already learning Java too...

Yep, if you know C++ well that's it. Major advantage that I see is, people who knows C++ can learn any language in short period of time. Don't forget OO concepts too. That's the heart of high level languages specially.