The first section of this course on programming introduces LISP as a programming language designed to do symbol manipulation, with consequent prevalence in auto-instructional (AI) work. A programming language specifies in its description a number of primitive operations which the computer knows how to perform. An algorithm is the set of…

Advocates that in order to serve their community's needs, administrators must encourage instructors to increase their knowledge of technologies such as microcomputers by participating in workshops offered by computer training companies so that students who find microcomputers in equipment they handle on the job will have basic knowledge of them.…

Described are the developments of a computing environment, the general training in the use of information technology, the training of specialists in computer science and engineering, and the use of information technology as an aid in the education process at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. (RH)

Administrators at small colleges are devising innovative policies to compete with recruiters from corporations and large universities to attract computer-science professors and hold on to them. Williams College offers higher salaries, while Middlebury College pays computer-science instructors as administrators on 11-month contracts. (MLW)

A description of a course for educators introducing the potential of the computer as a tool of instruction. The course is divided into five parts: 1)computer literacy, 2)motivation, 3)learning experiences, 4)reinforcement, and 5)evaluation. The course has been successful in improving the attitudes of the participating educators towards the…

Discusses teacher certification courses in computer education focusing on syllabus development and structure, involvement of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), and course aims (including knowledge of computer uses in education). Also discusses pilot projects involving the new certification scheme. Additional information can be found in February 1981…

Computers are both understandable and controllable. Educators need some understanding of a computer's cognitive profile, component parts, and systematic nature in order to set it to work on some of the teaching tasks that need to be done. Much computer-related vocabulary is discussed. (MP)

Presents research conducted with a group of non-computer science majors to determine the effects of prior computing experience on success in college computer science courses. Specific relationships between prior experience factors and gender were studied, and the results indicate that pre-college computing can have an important role in achieving…

The present paper describes an educational experiment dealing with teaching the theory of formal languages and automata as well as their application concepts. It presents a practical application of an educational experiment and initial results based on comparative instruction of two samples of students (n = 56). The application concept should…

This paper describes a game design and development course. The rationale for forming this class was to use student excitement with video games as an intrinsic motivation over traditional courses. Today's students have grown up exposed to gaming, interactive environments, and vivid 3D. Computer gaming has the capacity to attract many new students…

Natural computing is a terminology used to describe computational algorithms developed by taking inspiration from information processing mechanisms in nature, methods to synthesize natural phenomena in computers, and novel computational approaches based on natural materials. The virtual laboratory on natural computing (LVCoN) is a Web environment…

BIT BY BIT is an encryption game that is designed to improve students' understanding of natural language processing in computers. Participants encode clear words into binary code using an encryption key and exchange them in the game. BIT BY BIT enables participants who do not understand the concept of binary numbers to perform the process of…

Wikipedia is a well-known online encyclopedia, whose content is contributed and edited by volunteers. Its use by students for their research is, to be polite, controversial. Is Wikipedia really evil, or is it a teaching opportunity in disguise, a representation of some deeper cultural change? We present first-hand accounts from two different…

This study was designed to explore pre-service computer teachers' perception of motivation and response to an instruction based on self-regulated learning strategies. A pre-experimental method was used in this research. Data were collected through the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire developed by Pintrich and others (1993) and the…

We studied students' conceptions of correctness and their influence on students' correctness-related practices by examining how 159 students had analyzed the correctness of error-free and erroneous algorithms and by interviewing seven students regarding their work. We found that students conceptualized program correctness as the sum of the…