Dean Sanders

Jeroo: a tool for introducing object-oriented programming

Jeroo is a tool that has been developed to help students in beginning programming courses learn the semantics of fundamental control structures, learn the basic notions of using objects to solve problems, and learn to write methods that support a functional decomposition of the task. Jeroo is similar to Karel the Robot and its descendants, but has a narrower scope than Karels descendants and has a syntax that provides a smoother transition to either Java or C++. Jeroo has been class tested at Northwest Missouri State University, and has proven to be an effective tool for working with students in a beginning programming class. Jeroo and user documentation are available at http://www.nwmissouri.edu/~sanders/Jeroo/Jeroo.html.

Do students recognize ambiguity in software design? a multi-national, multi-institutional report

Successful software engineering requires experience and acknowledgment of complexity, including that which leads designers to recognize ambiguity within the software design description itself. We report on a study of 21 post-secondary institutions from the USA, UK, Sweden, and New Zealand. First competency and graduating students as well as educators were asked to perform a software design task. We found that as students go from first competency to graduating seniors they tend to recognize ambiguities in under-specified problems. Additionally, participants who recognized ambiguity addressed more requirements of the design.

Implementations of the CC′01 human – computer interaction guidelines using Bloom's taxonomy

In todays technology-laden society human – computer interaction (HCI) is an important knowledge area for computer scientists and software engineers. This paper surveys existing approaches to incorporate HCI into computer science (CS) and such related issues as the perceived gap between the interests of the HCI community and the needs of CS educators. It presents several implementations of the HCI subset of the CC′01 curricular guidelines, targeting CS educators with varying degrees of HCI expertise. These implementations include course/module outlines from freshman to graduate levels, suggested texts, and project ideas and issues, such as programming languages and environments. Most importantly, each outline incorporates Blooms taxonomy to identify the depth of knowledge to be mastered by students. This paper condenses collaborative contributions of 26 HCI/CS educators aiming to improve HCI coverage in mainstream CS curricula.

Teaching a course in parallel processing with limited resources

Parallel computers are no longer just experimental machines in computer science laboratories. The near future promises to put parallel computers on a desk top and make them avdiiabic to the general public, Some colleges and universities have responded to the developments in parallel architectures by offering courses on parallel processing. Because the demand for graduates who can write programs for parallel computers is expected to grow, more universities will obtain access to parallel computers and offer courses in which students can learn about parallel architectures and how to program them. The purpose of this paper is to describe the efforts of the authors to implement a course in parallel processing at a university which has no parallel computers.

Using Jeroo to introduce object-oriented programming

The authors present Jeroo, a pedagogical tool that provides a gentler introduction to object-oriented programming. Jeroo has been developed to help novice programmers learn the basic notions of using objects to solve a problem, learn to write methods that support a functional decomposition of the task, and learn the semantics of fundamental control structures. Jeroos syntax provides a smooth transition to Java, C++, or C#. The user interface has a single window in which everything is always visible. Source code highlighting, simple animation, and a continuously updated status panel provide a rich teaching and learning environment. Jeroo has been class tested at Northwest Missouri State University, and has proven to be an effective tool for working with novice programmers. Used in the first four weeks of a Java programming class, Jeroo produced a significant increase in student comfort and confidence levels, especially among female students. Jeroo and user documentation are available at http://www.nwmissouri.edu//spl sim/sanders/Jeroo/Jeroo.html.

Do students recognize ambiguity in software specifications? a multi-national, multi-institutional report

Successful software engineering requires experience and acknowledgment of complexity, including that which leads designers to recognize ambiguity within the software design description itself. We report on a study of 21 post-secondary institutions from the USA, UK, Sweden, and New Zealand. First competency and graduating students as well as educators were asked to perform a software design task. We found that graduating seniors were more likely to recognize ambiguities in under-specified problems than first competency students. Additionally, participants who addressed all requirements in the design were more likely than others to recognize ambiguities in the design specification. The behavior of recognizing ambiguity and gathering information appear to be independent of past performance, as measured by course grades.

JAVA IDEs: why and how we use what we do

This panel reflects the experiences of several faculty who each use a different Java Interactive Development Environment (IDE). Panelists will discuss the salient features of the IDEs that are used at their particular institutions. Each panelist will discuss system requirements, ease of installation, strengths and weaknesses of each IDE and pointers for successful adaptation to the classroom.