183,573 research outputs found
Blue - A Language for Teaching Object-Oriented Programming
Teaching object-oriented programming has clearly become an important part of computer science education. We agree with many others that the best place to teach it is in the CS1 introductory course. Many problems with this have been reported in the literature. These mainly result from inadequate languages and environments. Blue is a new language and integrated programming environment, currently under development explicitly for object-oriented teaching. We expect clear advantages from the use of Blue for first year teaching compared to using other available languages. This paper describes the design principles on which the language was based and the most important aspects of the language itself
Professionally-Oriented Communicative Language Teaching Approach by the Design of a Computer Assisted ESP Course: Analysis of Results
Professionally-Oriented Communicative Language Teaching is an effective approach widely recognized among scientists and teachers which involves learners in authentic environment and communication and helps develop communicative competence of non-native speakers studying English for specific purposes (ESP). With the increase of Computer Assisted Language Learning teachers are constantly facing challenges to combine information technology with the Professionally-Oriented Communicative Language Teaching approach, and to develop and design relevant communicative activities which result in non-native speakers' of English improvement in communicative competence. The attempt to integrate computer assisted language environments and professionally oriented communicative language teaching results in the development of E-learning ESP courses in the Modular Object Oriented Developmental Learning Environment, based on the module "Electric systems and networks". The subjects of the study were sixty students, including students from Vietnam and the Czech Republic studying ESP at the Institute of Power Engineering of Tomsk Polytechnic University. The data was collected over a period of two years from the results of students' performance and a questionnaire survey concerning feedback on students' communicative language activities conducted during the course. The results indicate variations in the attitude of students from different countries to the developed communication activities. As the students state, however, the e-learning ESP course provides communicative situations similar to real ones and gives an opportunity to use the acquired knowledge in practical, professional, and research activity
Professionally-Oriented Communicative Language Teaching Approach by the Design of a Computer Assisted ESP Course: Analysis of Results
Professionally-Oriented Communicative Language Teaching is an effective approach widely recognized among scientists and teachers which involves learners in authentic environment and communication and helps develop communicative competence of non-native speakers studying English for specific purposes (ESP). With the increase of Computer Assisted Language Learning teachers are constantly facing challenges to combine information technology with the Professionally-Oriented Communicative Language Teaching approach, and to develop and design relevant communicative activities which result in non-native speakers' of English improvement in communicative competence. The attempt to integrate computer assisted language environments and professionally oriented communicative language teaching results in the development of E-learning ESP courses in the Modular Object Oriented Developmental Learning Environment, based on the module "Electric systems and networks". The subjects of the study were sixty students, including students from Vietnam and the Czech Republic studying ESP at the Institute of Power Engineering of Tomsk Polytechnic University. The data was collected over a period of two years from the results of students' performance and a questionnaire survey concerning feedback on students' communicative language activities conducted during the course. The results indicate variations in the attitude of students from different countries to the developed communication activities. As the students state, however, the e-learning ESP course provides communicative situations similar to real ones and gives an opportunity to use the acquired knowledge in practical, professional, and research activity
An Object-Oriented Information Systems Course
An Object-oriented information systems course taught at the senior level is described. C++ is used as the language to teach object-orientation. In addition to the language, analysis and design concepts are integrated into the course. A topic outline for the course is described. Course materials used to teach such a course and the projects assigned are presented. Concepts that need to be stressed such as encapsulation, inheritance and polymorphism are reviewed. The impact of OO approaches on databases, software development are discussed. The teaching of C++ in a DOS based environment as opposed to using GUI based methods is briefly discussed
DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A BIOINFORMATICS ONLINE DISTANCE EDUCATION LEARNING TOOL FOR AFRICA
Bioinformatics refers to the creation and advancement of algorithms, computational and statistical techniques and theories for solving formal and practical problems arising from the management and analysis of biological data. However, some parts of the African continent have not been
properly sensitized to bio-scientific and computing field. Thus, there is the need for appropriate strategies of introducing the basic components of this emerging scientific field to part of the African populace through the development of an online distance education learning tool. This study involved the design of a bioinformatics online distance educative tool an implementation of the
bioinformatics online distance educative tool by a programming approach. Design and implementation were done using the Borland Delphi 7 Enterprise edition within its Integrated Development Environment. The advantage of using Delphi programming language in implementing this useful bioinformatics web tool is that Delphi programming language is an object oriented programming language that has a lot of extra facilities for the enhancement of further technical
functions, which ordinary HTML cannot handle. The development and use of a bioinformatics distance education software, as a teaching tool, in some African countries holds great promise for accommodating the needs of the populace, who live in cities, small towns and remote areas
Assistant assignment planner system design and implementation
This report describes the system design and implementation for the Teaching Assistant Assignment Planner System (TAAP) for Computer Science Department in Concordia University. TAAP system is expected to provide a convenient way for TA administrator to manage TA assignment task. This report also presents an Object-Oriented approach for the implementation of Graphical User Interface (GUI) for TAAP system in Windows environment. UML (Unified Modeling Language) has been used in the design and analysis procedure of TAAP, and we use Borland Jbuilder 5.0 for the implementation of the user interface. Microsoft Access 2000 has been used to implement the database of the system
VisibleZ: A Mainframe Architecture Emulator for Computing Education
This paper describes a PC-based mainframe computer emulator
called VisibleZ and its use in teaching mainframe Computer Organization
and Assembly Programming classes.
VisibleZ models IBM’s z/Architecture
and allows direct interpretation of mainframe assembly language object
code in a graphical user interface environment that was developed in Java.
The VisibleZ emulator acts as an interactive visualization tool to simulate
enterprise computer architecture. The provided architectural components
include main storage, CPU, registers, Program Status Word (PSW), and
I/O Channels. Particular attention is given to providing visual clues to
the user by color-coding screen components, machine instruction execution,
and animation of the machine architecture components.
Students interact with VisibleZ by executing machine instructions in a step-by-step
mode, simultaneously observing the contents of memory, registers, and changes in
the PSW during the fetch-decode-execute machine instruction cycle. The
object-oriented design and implementation of VisibleZ allows students to
develop their own instruction semantics by coding Java for existing specific
z/Architecture machine instructions or design and implement new machine
instructions.
The use of VisibleZ in lectures, labs, and assignments is described
in the paper and supported by a website that hosts an extensive
collection of related materials. VisibleZ has been proven a useful tool in
mainframe Assembly Language Programming and Computer Organization
classes. Using VisibleZ, students develop a better understanding of
mainframe concepts, components, and how the mainframe computer works.
ACM Computing Classification System (1998): C.0, K.3.2
Interviews With College Students: Evaluating Computer Programming Environments For Introductory Courses
Different methods, strategies, or tools have been proposed for teaching Object Oriented Programming (OOP). However, it is still difficult to introduce OOP to novice learners. The problem may be not only adopting a method or language, but also use of an appropriate integrated development environment (IDE). Therefore, the focus should be on the needs of learners when selecting an IDE and the evaluations for instructional purposes may allow making objective decisions for an introductory course design. There are different methods or frameworks for evaluating IDEs and the majority focuses on the experts’ needs. Unfortunately, studies done on instructional appropriateness of IDEs are insufficient. In this study, an evaluation framework is initially proposed, then the candidate IDEs are evaluated, and finally, the perceptions of college students are explored by conducting semi-structured interviews. The data are analyzed by the Verbal Analysis technique, and the results are discussed in view of the evaluation criteria. The results imply that the learners view one of the criteria relatively more supportive for learning
Four approaches to teaching programming
Based on a survey of literature, four different approaches to teaching introductory programming are identified and described. Examples of the practice of each approach are identified representing procedural, visual, and object-oriented programming language paradigms. Each approach is then further analysed, identifying advantages and disadvantages for the student and the teacher. The first approach, code analysis, is analogous to reading before writing, that is, recognising the parts and what they mean. It requires learners to analyse and understand existing code prior to producing their own. An alternative is the building blocks approach, analogous to learning vocabulary, nouns and verbs, before constructing sentences. A third approach is identified as simple units in which learners master solutions to small problems before applying the learned logic to more complex problems. The final approach, full systems, is analogous to learning a foreign language by immersion whereby learners design a solution to a non-trivial problem and the programming concepts and language constructs are introduced only when the solution to the problem requires their application. The conclusion asserts that competency in programming cannot be achieved without mastering each of the approaches, at least to some extent. Use of the approaches in combination could provide novice programmers with the opportunities to acquire a full range of knowledge, understanding, and skills. Several orders for presenting the approaches in the classroom are proposed and analysed reflecting the needs of the learners and teachers. Further research is needed to better understand these and other approaches to teaching programming, not in terms of learner outcomes, but in terms of teachers’ actions and techniques employed to facilitate the construction of new knowledge by the learners. Effective classroom teaching practices could be informed by further investigations into the effect on progression of different toolset choices and combinations of teaching approache
I/O Considered Harmful (At least for the first few weeks)
One of the major difficulties with teaching the first programming course is input/output. It is desirable to show students how to input data and output results early in the course in order to motivate the students and so that they can see the results of their programs. Output is also a useful tool for testing programs. However, in most programming languages input and output are esoteric and the techniques for performing input and output must be learnt by the students at an early stage, precisely when they are trying to understand the basics of programming. We argue that input/output operations need not be taught in the early stages of a course if the language environment provides appropriate tools for testing programs. This assertion is demonstrated by reference to the Blue objectoriented language and environment
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