Using multimedia to develop students' programming concepts (original) (raw)

Students’ responses to the use of an Interactive Multimedia Tool for Learning Computer Programming

2004

This paper describes the design the Dynamic Interactive Visualisation Tool in Teaching C (DIVTIC), using multimedia and visual imagery to provide learners with a step-by-step representation of program execution in the C language as a means of enhancing their understanding of programming structures and concepts. The levels of use and uptake of DIVTIC was explored among a cohort of undergraduate engineering students, 50 at Suranaree University of Technology (SUT) in Thailand. The findings are discussed and ...

Teaching programming using visualization

Teaching computer programming to young students is a major challenge. This paper describes a web-based course for teaching programming using visualization and a gaming theme. Concepts are taught using real world examples that the target students can identify with; in this way some of the problems related to understanding abstract concepts are alleviated and learning occurs in context. The full range of multimedia technology including animation, sound and video are used to immerse the student in an environment where learning is fun and visual display of the concepts reinforce learning. A gaming theme is used for formative assessment. Students are provided with 'game' activities such as "spot the error", "predict the output" and "put in order". These enhance critical thinking. They test comprehension and knowledge as well as higher order thinking skills.

Creating Visualizations from Multimedia Building Blocks: A Simple Approach to Teaching Programming Concepts

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

Academics teaching programming are faced with the challenge of teaching dynamic concepts using static media. Despite multiple tools developed in the past to support learning of programming concepts, access to these tools is very limited and many educators have to create their own support materials and tools which is often time-consuming, complex and expensive. In this paper we share our experience of producing simple animations using widely and/or freely available software packages to develop small building blocks that are customizable and reusable and can be mixed and matched to meet the learning requirements of individual students. Positive student feedback from using these tools has encouraged the continued exploration of options for developing animations illustrating programming concepts.

CGRAPHIC: Educational software for learning the foundations of programming

Computer Applications in Engineering Education, 2003

We present CGRAPHIC, an original software for learning the basic concepts of implementing (possibly educational) software. CGRAPHIC is being used in first-year university courses in engineering studies, and its main aim is to complement the role of the teacher and improve the quality of teaching foundations of programming. CGRAPHIC is a virtual tutor, a programming textbook (online), and an interpreter as well as a debugger of the programming language C, and can be executed on any navigator program in Internet or locally. This software enables different levels of learning (theoretical and practical) and allows the student to study-intuitively, graphically, and gradually-the principles of programming that are crucial to developing new software.

Facilitating programming comprehension for novice learners with multimedia approach: A preliminary investigation

This research paper presents the preliminary investigation on the use of an interactive multimedia courseware named MAFPro, to facilitate C Programming lessons for novice learners. The courseware utilizes the elements of multimedia that focus on enhancing learners' programming comprehension. Among the aspects that were examined were the students' programming comprehension and their perceived motivation of MAFPro. This study was carried out in a survey design method with the participation of 30 undergraduates who are novice learners. The data analysis indicates that the multimedia courseware, MAFPro that has been used in the C programming classroom has a significant difference on the undergraduates' programming comprehension. The students also perceived MAFPro as motivating and engaging.

Use of visual programming environments to learn introductory programming concepts

Proceedings of ACEC, the Australian Computers in …, 2006

This paper reports preliminary work in a study into the use of software visualisation systems to support student cognitive development of fundamental programming concepts. The ALICE programming language is utilised as a software visualisation system to assist students develop progressively complex understanding of the programming concept of sequence. Preliminary results suggest tracking of cognitive development utilising mental model theory may provide assistance in verifying student understanding of fundamental programming concepts and a framework in which to provide tailored remedial intervention.

Design and Development of an Interactive Multimedia Simulation for Augmenting the Teaching and Learning of Programming Concepts

2017

Teaching and learning programming has presented many challenges in institutions of higher learning worldwide. Teaching and learning programming require cognitive reasoning, mainly due to the fundamental reality that the underlying concepts are complex and abstract. As a result, many institutions of higher learning are faced with low success rates in programming courses. This paper presents the design and development of an interactive multimedia simulation (IMS) prototype for augmenting the teaching and learning of programming concepts. An initial requirements elicitation was conducted with the purpose of obtaining the perceptions of programming lecturers and students regarding the programming concepts that present teaching and learning difficulties. The results of this requirements elicitation informed the design and development of an IMS prototype. A design-based research methodology was used which resulted in both a practical and theoretical contribution, i.e. a fully-functional I...

A study of visualization in introductory programming

… of the Annual Meeting of the …, 2008

The teaching of fundamental programming skills is a field that extensively uses different kinds of tools to enhance learning experience. These tools come in several sizes, offering wide range of different equipment or approaches to the teaching of introductory programming curricula. At the same time, computer sciences, and programming courses in particular, suffer from high drop-out rates and falling student grades. Students lose interest on programming because of several complex models and structures have to be learned before anything visually impressive can be created. This problem is intensified by the new multimedia environments like games and applets, whereas command line programs and data algorithms have lost impact and are not considered interesting. So can visualization tools be used to increase the student motivation and create motivational tasks to promote interest towards programming?

A Proposed Framework For Visualization To Teach Computer Science

2007

Computer programming is considered a very difficult course by many computer science students. The reasons for the difficulties include cognitive load involved in programming, different learning styles of students, instructional methodology and the choice of the programming languages. To reduce the difficulties the following have been tried: pair programming, program visualization, different learning styles etc. However, these efforts have produced limited success. This paper reviews the problem and proposes a framework to help students overcome the difficulties involved.

Teaching an Introductory Programming Course Through Computer Graphics - An Experimental Approach

Introduction to programming courses in many engineering departments are usually given with a C-based language for the novice programmer, most generally, a high level language is chosen for the student to adapt the department easily. The most common problem among students are the lack of visual outputs, hence it reduces the desire to programming. In this paper, 2 years of teaching programming through computer graphics are given. The study was carried out among 10th grade high school students and the results have shown that to enhance the enthusiasm towards programming courses and to increase the success in programming, computer graphics is advised to be given as an introductory programming language course by the students.