Designing a Java graphics library for CS 1

Roberts, Eric; Picard, Antoine

doi:10.1145/282991.283129

Cited by 24 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Although this approach capitalizes on the high appeal of GUIs, in Java it introduces a level of complexity that makes it prohibitive for all but the strongest students to fully grasp the required concepts (Koffman & Wolz, 1999). Graphics libraries such as those described in Bruce, Danyluk, and Murtagh (2001) and Roberts and Picard (1998) may alleviate this problem to an extent. Smith and Boyd (2001) suggest having students act as class users before requiring them to develop classes.…”

Section: Class User Versus Class Developermentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effectiveness of Screencasts and Cognitive Tools as Scaffolding for Novice Object-Oriented Programmers

Lee

Pradhan²,

Dalgarno³

2008

JITE:Research

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Executive SummaryModern information technology and computer science curricula employ a variety of graphical tools and development environments to facilitate student learning of introductory programming concepts and techniques. While the provision of interactive features and the use of visualization can enhance students' understanding and assist them in grasping fundamental ideas, the real difficulty for many students lies in making the transition from relying on the graphical features of these tools, to actually writing programming code statements in accordance with a set of plain English instructions.This article opens with a systematic review of the literature on alternative approaches to teaching object-oriented programming (OOP) to novice programmers. It then describes the rationale behind an "objects first, class user first" approach to introducing OOP, arguing for the use of interactive GUI-based visualization tools such as BlueJ as cognitive tools to allow learners to represent and manipulate their mental models or schemas. Finally, it reports on a study involving a cohort of students undertaking an introductory OOP unit in Java. The study investigated the effectiveness of: (i) the graphical features of BlueJ as a cognitive tool while performing coding tasks as part of a test; and (ii) the use of screencasts (video screen captures) of BlueJ to provide scaffolding during learning, which involves the provision of temporary support structures to assist learners in attaining the next stage or level in their development. The screencasts were used in conjunction with a series of structured exercises by providing an intermediate stepping stone to ease the transition to the writing of program code.The study found no significant effect of screencasts during the learning phase of the study, and no significant effect of BlueJ during testing. This result runs counter to theoretical predictions and consequently is important both for researchers focusing on the pedagogy associated with learning programming as well as those interested in the broader applications of animated instructional resources and cognitive tools.In the article, the authors postulate a number of reasons for the lack of significant effects to sup-port their hypotheses. Firstly, it is possible that Material published as part of this publication, either on-line or in print, is copyrighted by the Informing Science Institute. Permission to make digital or paper copy of part or all of these works for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that the copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage AND that copies 1) bear this notice in full and 2) give the full citation on the first page. It is permissible to abstract these works so long as credit is given. To copy in all other cases or to republish or to post on a server or to redistribute to lists requires specific permission and payment of a fee. Contact Publisher@InformingScience.org to request redistribution permission. Screencasts and Cognitive Tools for Novice ...

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Section: Class User Versus Class Developermentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effectiveness of Screencasts and Cognitive Tools as Scaffolding for Novice Object-Oriented Programmers

Lee

Pradhan²,

Dalgarno³

2008

JITE:Research

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“…Methods may be invoked on the robots to move and turn them, and to have the robots handle beepers. Bruce et al [3] and Roberts [13] use graphics libraries in an object-first approach. Here, there is some sort of canvas onto which objects (e.g.…”

Section: Instructional Support Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching objects-first in introductory computer science

Cooper

Dann

Pausch

2003

Proceedings of the 34th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

251

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An objects-first strategy for teaching introductory computer science courses is receiving increased attention from CS educators. In this paper, we discuss the challenge of the objectsfirst strategy and present a new approach that attempts to meet this challenge. The new approach is centered on the visualization of objects and their behaviors using a 3D animation environment. Statistical data as well as informal observations are summarized to show evidence of student performance as a result of this approach. A comparison is made of the pedagogical aspects of this new approach with that of other relevant work.

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“…This has led to a number of initiatives to introduce graphical problems into introductory computer science courses. These initiatives include programming environments such as Alice [4] and numerous high level libraries [8,12,13,14,15].…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

QuickDraw

Stephenson

Taube-Schock

2009

Proceedings of the 40th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

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This paper describes a new tool for introducing computer graphics and multimedia applications into first year, called QuickDraw, and our experience using it. QuickDraw provides an easy to use language and platform independent interface which permits students to create multimedia applications beginning with their first assignment in an introductory computer science course. QuickDraw has been carefully designed to avoid complex "magical" statements in order to setup, use, or tear down the multimedia environment, making it an appropriate tool for use with students with no prior programming experience. As instructors, we have found that QuickDraw effectively engages students by allowing them to create visually impressive programs with minimal complexity, while continuing to allow us to effectively teach fundamental computer science concepts.

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Designing a Java graphics library for CS 1

Cited by 24 publications

References 8 publications

The Effectiveness of Screencasts and Cognitive Tools as Scaffolding for Novice Object-Oriented Programmers

The Effectiveness of Screencasts and Cognitive Tools as Scaffolding for Novice Object-Oriented Programmers

Teaching objects-first in introductory computer science

QuickDraw

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