Efficient and Playful Tools to Teach Unix to New Students

Teaching Unix to new students is a common tasks in many higher schools. This paper presents an approach to such course where the students progress autonomously with the help of the teacher. The traditional textbook is complemented with a wiki, and the main thread of the course is a game, in the form of a treasure hunt. The course finishes with a lab exam, where students have to perform practical manipulations similar to the ones performed during the treasure hunt. The exam is graded fully automatically. This paper discusses the motivations and advantages of the approach, and gives an overall view of the tools we developed. The tools are available from the web, and open-source, hence re-usable outside the Ensimag.Comment: ITiCSE, Darmstadt : Germany (2011

Teaching Advanced Bash Scripting Using Semi-automated Assessment Environment

Bash on Unix'i käsuinterpretaator ning skriptimiskeel. Käesolev töö keskendub ülesannetekogu ning testimismehhanismi implementeerimisele progressiivse Bash skriptimise õpetamiseks. Antud hetkel puuduvad paljudes ülikoolikursustes materjalid, mis kasutavad õpetamisel Linux'i keskkonda. Antud lähenemine üritab muuta skriptimise õppimise efektiivsemaks ning erineda programmeerimisainetele omastest lähenemistest. Põhiosa teadustööst keskendub ülesanneteplokkide struktuurile, kolme ploki implementeerimisele (\\textit{for} ja \\textit{while} tsüklid, tingimuslaused) ja kontrollskriptile. Kokkuvõttes vajab antud süsteem veel testimist, kuid on üliõpilastele Bash skriptimise õpetamiseks paljulubav automaatõppesüsteem. Tulevikus on võimalik täiendada olemasolevat tulemust uute ülesannete juurde tegemisega ning testskripti muutmisega. Selleks, et mõista, millised on õpilaste nõrkused Bash skriptimise alal, tuleks läbi viia täiendavaid katseid.Bash is a Unix command-line interpreter as well as a scripting language. This thesis focuses on implementing exercise sets and a testing mechanism for teaching progressive Bash scripting. Right now there is a lack of such material in several university courses that use Linux environment in teaching. The approach attempts to make learning scripting more effective and make it different from the approaches used in several programming courses. The main part of this thesis concentrates on the structure of the exercise sets, implementation of three sets (for and while loop, conditionals) and the validation script. In the end, the presented system lacks real life testing but shows great promise as an automated learning system for teaching university students Bash scripting. In the future, the existing work could be improved by generating more exercises and modifying the tester. To get an idea of students' weaknesses concerning Bash, an intensive testing should be carried out

uAssign: Scalable and flexible interactive activities for teaching the UNIX terminal

In this thesis, I describe uAssign, an assignment system for teaching and assessing command line terminal skills. It allows an instructor to create terminal assignments where students complete a sequence of operations to achieve a goal correctly that can be automatically graded. Assignments can be randomized, and are created to an instructor's specification. uAssign provides a friendly user interface to a Docker container via an in-browser terminal emulator powered by WebSockets. Performance testing and its use in an ongoing course show that it is efficient enough to handle a large number of concurrent users. A survey of students shows significant improvement in terminal skill confidence after using uAssign and provides interesting insight into the preferences and opinions of freshman-level students on the subject of their development workflows and terminal experience

Pasifika Tertiary Students' Use of Information and Communication Technologies

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are pervasive in our daily lives. In New Zealand tertiary education institutions, the adoption of ICT is widespread. Meanwhile, Pasifika students’ participation in tertiary education has been increasing. Yet, for this group of students, academic success has been a concern to successive governments, tertiary institutions, and Pasifika peoples. ICT may offer an opportunity to improve Pasifika students’ academic achievement. The study is premised on the belief that positive learning experiences will lead to improved academic outcomes. Consequently, the study explored ways of using ICT to enhance Pasifika students’ learning experiences. Adopting an interpretivist approach, the case study investigated the ICT skills and the use of ICT for learning enhancements of a group of Pasifika students at a New Zealand institute of technology. Over a period of eighteen months, data was gathered through talanoa, participant observation, and the researcher’s reflective journal. The three method approach enabled data triangulation. Data analysis adhered to the theoretical propositions of the study. Among the key findings, is the disturbing realization that Pasifika students’ ICT skill levels were not at the level assumed by the institution. The main uses of ICT by the Pasifika students in this study were for personal communication and entertainment. The students’ use of ICT for educational purposes was limited due to the mismatch of their ICT skills and those required by the institution. Inadvertently, this has further disadvantaged the students’ learning experiences. The study concludes by offering an ICT skills development framework for use with Pasifika students. Moreover, the study proposes a number of recommendations for practice, policy, and further research