The IT-Adventures program is dedicated to increasing interest in and awareness of information technology among high school students using inquiry-based learning focused on three content areas: cyber defense, game design programming, and robotics. The program combines secondary, post-secondary, and industry partnerships in educational programming,…

In an ideal world, review and changes to computing curricula should be driven solely by academic concerns for the needs of students. The process should be informed by industry accreditation processes and international best practice (Hurst et al., 2001). However, Australian computing curricular review is often driven by the need for financial…

For educational purposes it is not necessary to use expensive commercial-grade equipment to teach students about commonly used sensors. Schools frequently have limited funds for acquiring educational materials; therefore, purchasing sensors identical to those used in large-scale industry is not an option. By purchasing small-scale components that…

To make learning process more effective, the educational systems deliver content adapted to specific user needs. Adequate personalization requires the domain of learning to be described explicitly in a particular detail, involving relationships between knowledge elements referred to as concepts. Manual creation of necessary annotations is in the…

The purpose of the course presented here is to introduce freshmen to embedded systems using LEGO Mindstorms, under an ANSI-C programming environment. The students build their own LEGO robots, make programs for them using ANSI-C, and operate them. By creating these LEGO robots, the students become more motivated, learning the basic concepts of…

Engineering programs suffer a high attrition rate, which causes the nation to graduate much less engineers. A survey of the literature reveals that the high attrition rate is due mainly to the fact that the first year of an engineering program is all fundamental theory and students don't see the connection to their future engineering careers. To…

Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) is changing the way we build, operate, and maintain our software-intensive systems. Several projects using MDE practices are reporting significant improvements in quality and performance but, to be able to handle these projects, software engineers need a set of technical and interpersonal skills that are currently…

This paper presents a new laboratory-based module for embedded systems teaching, which addresses the current lack of consideration for the link between hardware development, software implementation, course content and student evaluation in a laboratory environment. The course introduces second year undergraduate students to the interface between…

University education often suffers from a lack of an explicit and adaptable didactic design. Students complain about the insufficient adaptability to the learners' needs. Learning content and services need to reach their audience according to their different prerequisites, needs, and different learning styles and conditions. A way to overcome such…

This paper presents Programming Adaptive Testing (PAT), a Web-based adaptive testing system for assessing students' programming knowledge. PAT was used in two high school programming classes by 73 students. The question bank of PAT is composed of 443 questions. A question is classified in one out of three difficulty levels. In PAT, the levels of…

Presents a collection of short items, including: (1) a routine to watch while computer processing occurs; (2) a MSBASIC-to-WORDSTAR translator; (3) an easy by-column printout; and (4) a selection of one-line functions, such as automatic string centering. (JN)

Examines some of the mathematical topics which are important in computer science by discussing in some detail the process of sorting by comparisons. (JN)

This paper discusses Svetovid, cross-platform software that helps instructors to assess the amount of effort put into practical exercises and exams in courses related to computer programming. The software was developed as an attempt at solving problems associated with practical exercises and exams. This paper discusses the design and use of…

The security and assurance of our computing infrastructure has become a national priority. To address this priority, higher education has gradually incorporated the principles of computer and information security into the mainstream undergraduate and graduate computer science curricula. To achieve effective education, learning security principles…

When video recordings of Ravi Janardan's computer-science course at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities first went online, the students loved it. Instead of dragging themselves out of bed for the 8 a.m. lectures, many started skipping classes and watching the recordings instead. Recording lectures is becoming more and more common, and many…