A typical first computer science course (CS1) introduces the student to coding conventions, variables, methods, control structures, conditionals, and the semantics of classes and objects. Advanced concepts of inheritance, polymorphism, abstract classes, interfaces, and their use in the design process, are covered in a second-level course (CS2).…

In an educational environment, instructors would always think of ways to provide students with motivational learning materials and efficient learning strategies. Hence, many researchers have proposed that students' problem-solving ability enhances their learning. Problem-solving ability plays an important role for users in dealing with problems…

Serious games seem to be a promising alternative to traditional practices for learning. Recently, their use in computer science education and learning programming became more widespread. Actually, many students in programming courses have difficulties to master all required competencies and skills especially at introductory level and games have…

We developed the Draw-A-Computer-Scientist-Test (DACST) to better understand elementary school students' conceptions of computer scientists and the nature of their work. By understanding how young children perceive computer scientists, we can broaden their ideas about the activities and images of computer scientists. We administered the DACST to…

Among recent e-Learning Pedagogical Strategies, gaming and crisis-simulation games are increasingly used in recent years in university-learning and Blended-courses as an out-of-context effective tool for role-playing and education, especially in Law Schools and Business Schools. Gaming covers several sub-fields (war-games; Law School Mock-Trials;…

This study presents the findings of a systematic literature review on educational computer game development activity utilized in learning environments. The main aim of this review is to investigate the effects of game design activity on learning outcomes of students. Additionally, there are other factors examined in the review such as participant…

Teaching students to create computer games has become a common practice in both K-12 and tertiary education to introducing programming concepts, increasing student engagement, and recruiting majors and minors in technology fields. This study describes a project where first-year college students in an introductory technology concepts course use a…

This paper describes ToonTalk, a general-purpose concurrent programming system in which the source code is animated and the programming environment is a video game. The design objectives of ToonTalk were to create a self-teaching programming system for children that was also a very powerful and flexible programming tool. A keyboard can be used for…

ToonTalk is an animated interactive world inside of which one can construct a very large range of computer programs. These programs are not constructed by typing text or arranging icons, but by taking actions in this world. Robots can be trained, birds can be given messages to deliver, and so on. This paper describes the design and preliminary…

Modern computing systems exploit graphical user interfaces for interaction with users; as a result, introductory computer science courses must begin to teach the principles underlying such interfaces. This paper presents an approach to graphical user interface (GUI) implementation that is simple enough for beginning students to understand, yet…

Six conference panel discussions on uses of technology in education are presented. The first panel, "The Use of Hypermedia in the Teaching and Learning of Programming" (Tom Boyle, Chair, and others) discusses achievements in hypermedia-based instruction, design needs, and experiences. The second panel, "Virtual Clayoquot Video…