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…

Bioinformatics, merging biological data with computer science, is increasingly incorporated into school curricula at all levels. This case study of 10 secondary school students highlights student individual differences (especially the way they processed information and integrated procedural and analytical thought) and summarizes a variety of…

We observe that recruitment efforts aimed at alleviating the shortage of skilled workforce in computer engineering must be augmented with strategies for retaining and motivating the students after they have enrolled in our educational programmes. At the University of California, Santa Barbara, we have taken a first step in this direction by…

Design patterns have become a widely acknowledged software engineering practice and therefore have been incorporated in the curricula of most computer science departments. This paper presents an observational study on students' ability to understand and apply design patterns. Within the context of a postgraduate software engineering course,…

The defectiveness of the effectiveness of the Hungarian general education revealed in the PISA survey appears in the higher education as well. The "Introduction to Informatics" subject has one of the lowest exam results among the students of the College of Nyíregyháza majoring in Computer Program Designer and Teacher of Computer Science.…

Organizations worldwide have been turning to Six Sigma program (SSP) to eliminate the defects in their products or drive out the variability in their processes to attain a competitive advantage in their marketplace. An effective certification program has been touted as a major contributor to successful implementation of SSP. An effective…

Courses in Computer Architecture and Organization are regularly included in Computer Engineering curricula. These courses are usually organized in such a way that students obtain not only a purely theoretical experience, but also a practical understanding of the topics lectured. This practical work is usually done in a laboratory using simulators…

This paper describes a practical experience of adapting the teaching of a course in Computer Technology (CT) to the new demands of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). CT is a core course taught in the first year of the degree program Technical Engineering in Management Computing in the Faculty of Computer Science at the University of A…

We propose an extension of the Teaching Machine project, called Quiz Generator, that allows instructors to produce assessment quizzes in the field of algorithm and data structures quite easily. This extension makes use of visualization techniques and is based on new features of the Teaching Machine that allow third-party visualizers to be added as…

The literature has frequently highlighted the usefulness of podcasting in higher education; however, there is an important gap between the theory on good practice in higher education and empirical studies about podcasting. With this in mind, we carried out an empirical study on an undergraduate degree course in Information Systems Management. The…

While Web 2.0 has no universal definition, it always refers to online interactions in which user groups both provide and receive content with the aim of collective intelligence. Since 2005, online software has provided Web 2.0 collaboration technologies, for little or no charge, that were formerly available only to wealthy organizations. Academic…