Maria Feldgen

Games as a motivation for freshman students learn programming

Programming is a difficult skill to acquire. It is best learned by practice and, if students are to learn effectively, at least some of this practice have to be self-directed. Instructors key role is to persuade our students to do this and thus to motivate them. In the past, our students identified programming as a vital skill in demand by industry. Consequently they were motivated to acquire a useful skill that would be relevant in some future job or lucrative career. Nowadays, our WEB age students have no idea why they have to study programming. Programming courses are seen simply as mandatory parts of the degree course to be negotiated. Their world of computing is multithreaded computer programs with impressive human interfaces for games and WEB. They cannot relate them with the classical programming exercises that ask for single-threaded programs performing a sequence of calculations. Given this, we decided to introduce our students in problem solving using what they view as real-world problems such as games and WEB-programming.

New motivations are required for freshman introductory programming

The perception of software engineering practice prevailing in todays students changed a lot from the image we had of the profession when we began our studies. Freshmen perceive the profession they chose from their experience, where Web and games were the most outstanding examples. The first course in programming traditionally addresses examples drawn from math and physics, and when motivation is required, from what we consider is the real world of professional development. But this real world is not the image that freshmen have as to what they will be doing for a living. So these kind of examples have lost their motivating power. Programming seems to be no more a vocational training for students pursuing a software engineering degree. We introduced Web and game programming examples instead of classical programming exercises in our first programming courses. This approach proved to be more motivating to our students.

Scaffolding students in a complex learning environment

The design of distributed systems is a rather complex and difficult task. Distributed systems are complex systems that can be characterized as wicked problems because they involve an intricate combination of changing relationships between their various components. Research shows that it takes a lot of deliberate practice to move from the mindset of a novice to the mindset of an expert. To start cultivating experts design mindset we designed a cognitive support system consisting of a suite of mechanisms characterized by mentorship and social interactions around a real-world project. In a problem-based learning environment with cased-based reasoning, students have to follow a systematic approach using a common system of activities of “ritualized” activity structures. The systematic approach is based on the Rational Unified Process, CATs (Classroom Assessment Techniques) with rubrics, and scaffolding: questions prompts, peer-review, expert modeling, and self-reflection. This paper describes the challenges faced by novices and instructors in wicked problems design tasks in the context of developing a prototype and its framework and middleware for a complex distributed application while learning distributed systems concepts. It also outlines our interactive learning environment to scaffold the design and developing process improving students problem-solving skills and time on-task to reduce frustration.

Differences among experts, novices and trainees writing a report

Experts approach problems in a manner different from that of novices. We had the opportunity of comparing three groups of students with different levels of expertise in a classical information literacy assignment: writing a report on current research and findings on some computing related areas. Each group was at a different level of their experience building life. We asked our students to write a report on some cutting edge development related with computer technology. As we compared their work, we found that previous exposure of our novices group to writing abilities forced us to change a general assessment criterion by more specific ones.

An interdisciplinary teaming laboratory on industrial networks

A theme emerging from industry in the last years was the need for better education in logic control for manufacturing systems. The topic is interdisciplinary in nature. Modern manufacturing operation is a very complex issue and has to stem from various engineering disciplines, but in most academic settings the different disciplines are taught in isolation and are not representative of the type of experiences students will encounter in industry. The authors made an experience with four different discipline engineering students sharing the same laboratory. They are working with electric, electronic, industrial and informatics engineering senior students, because these are the fields that converge in the design, management and operation of a CIM centre.

Teaching abstraction in distributed systems with CATs

Designing and building a distributed system is a classic challenge within computer science. Models in distributed systems are rather complex, especially due to the inherent dynamics and intertwining actions occurring at different locations. These models are abstractions used for understanding and analyzing large and complex problems by simplifying the object of study and postulating a set of rules to define its behavior. Therefore, abstraction is a key skill to distributed systems and to computing. To develop studentspsila abstract reasoning skills we use an inductive learning approach and several classroom assessment techniques (CAT). We introduce each level of abstraction with concrete, practical examples of a case-study, relating the abstract concept to studentspsila concrete experiences. For the reflection on the concept we use CATs with the techniques of argumentative essay writing recommended for undergraduates in Liberal Studies and English courses. This paper presents the learning approach we use while keeping up with ever-rising participants with low attendance rates. The conducted classroom research and the analysis of findings and outcomes are described.

Work in Progress: Cultural Borders in CS1.

Teaching introductory programming in a Spanish speaking country means more than teaching the discipline. Tools, compilers, online helps, manuals and related documentation of any language used to teach problem solving and the programming process are in English. Our first year students have a high school English background; we try to use textbooks in English to help them with the terminology and prepare them to use any computer tool. Unfortunately their background in English is not enough to develop a clear correlation between programming languages sentences and the control structures they denote. Examples in textbooks represent traditional games or daily situations not usual in our country. For example, card games are played with a different set of clubs, numbers and faces, dice game like craps are practically unknown for teenagers and our grading system has nothing like a GPA. The average student is too intimidated by the programming task to enjoy these differences, and they see the examples as additional difficulties to surmount

Applying research methodology to undergraduate courses

Students at the School of Engineering of the University of Buenos Aires are requested, in their senior years from a six year program, to produce some research related activities and to write a thesis. Thesis works are regularly procrastinated because of reasons such as a highly unstructured (and thus unfamiliar) activity, lack of background on how to perform research, workplace pressure or lack of time. In addition, there is a social appreciation of research as a highly difficult task reserved only to Nobel Prize winners. Also research activities have been considered as being very different from the daily engineers work. In one of our courses, students get the big picture of concurrent programming fundamentals and its associated caveats and then, they must cover a more real world approach. We decided to guide them in some information collecting tasks, asking students to use some of the approaches in real world problems and comparing them by developing figures of merit. In the process we found ourselves developing in our students skills which seems to be more transferable than detail level programming skills and more in line with modern software industry requirement.

Argentinean historical heritage project

The digitalization effort of the Argentinean Heritage Project is described from its beginning, up to its present day form, as a framework of automatized, Web [1] operated and platform independent tools to assist historians to build and maintain digital libraries suited to their research needs. We show how low cost, labor intensive digital library building is possible using standard formats and tools.

Using a research project as classroom support the case of digital preservation of degraded historic manuscripts at the University of Buenos Aires School of Engineering

The last 20 years we have been developing a project on digital preservation of degraded historic handwritten documents in cooperation with the Instituto de Historia Argentina y Americana “Dr E. Ravignani” devoted to history research. This projects objective was the research and development of algorithms, tools, models and workflow to extract information from the images. This information was used to generate descriptive metadata and to provide a structured access to the historic archive. During the time we worked in the project, we decided to include the experiences and a reduced complexity version of the required tasks in the subjects we and other colleges are in charge at our University. This incorporation is in addition of using the project as a source of thesis and final work assignments. In this paper we will detail parts of the project and the modification of some tasks and requirements done to make them suitable as learning challenges.