Robert Griffiths

Avoiding object misconceptions

This paper identifies and describes a number of misconceptions observed in students learning about object technology. It identifies simple, concrete, measures course designers and teachers can take to avoid these misconceptions arising. The context for this work centres on an introductory undergraduate course and a postgraduate course. Both these courses are taught by distance education. These courses both use Smalltalk as an introduction to object technology. More particularly, the undergraduate course uses Smalltalk as a first programming language.Distance education can limit the amount and speed of individual feedback that can be given in the early stages of learning. For this reason, particular attention has been paid to characterizing measures for avoiding elementary misconceptions seen in beginning learners. At the same time we also address some misconceptions observed in postgraduate students. The pedagogical issues discussed are of particular importance when devising an extended series of examples for teaching or assessment, or when designing a visual microworld to be used for teaching purposes.

OU LearningWorks: a customized programming environment for Smalltalk modules

We have exploited and adapted Goldbergs LearningWorks framework to produce an environment with new programming tools, visualization tools, and system simulations. The environment is designed to be used via plug-in modules, called LearningBooks, sets of classes and persistent objects, for which we have developed a pedagogic standard that includes, for example, an HTML browser and various of the aforementioned tools and systems. The context for this development has been a distance learning degree-level course in object technology which is enrolling over 5000 mature students per year, mostly in the UK, Western Europe and Singapore. The course, M206, Computing: An Object-oriented Approach from the Open University (OU), will soon be introduced into the USA. While adhering to the original conception of LearningWorks that it promote a software engineering approach of systems building, we have successfully added support for the needs of the distance learning neophyte. By showing various microworlds and programming tools these notes outline the environment we have implemented and deployed.

The object shop—using CD-ROM multimedia to introduce object concepts

This paper describes key features of a new multimedia CD-ROM pack produced by television makers in collaboration with computer science educators --- by the BBC for the Open University Computing Department. The pack, The Object Shop, forms an early component of an undergraduate course which introduces object-oriented computing and software development to students new to computing. Building on the results of empirical evaluation, The Object Shop has been designed to help students with no programming experience to understand core object programming concepts. Throughout the CD-ROM, video, animated graphics and an underlying object-oriented simulation of a virtual shopping environment provide an accessible introduction to the central ideas of object-oriented programming. The key power of the multimedia approach is that the student-user is able to gain a sound operational understanding of concepts before learning the details of programming code or syntax. Users can continually monitor their progress through a series of task-based, assessed exercises.

Employing object technology to expose fundamental object concepts

We explore technical issues in the design of programming tools, development environments, simulations, code examples, user interface frameworks and pedagogies for a university-level course on object-oriented software development. The course, M206 Computing: An Object-Oriented Approach has been specifically developed for distance learning, and is enrolling over 5,000 students per year (average age 37) in the UK, Europe and Singapore. The course introduces computing via an object-oriented approach. M206 is substantial in extent representing one sixth of a degree. It embodies a practical, industry oriented view of computing and includes programming, analysis, design and group working. Considerable effort has been invested in making the simplicity, consistency and power of object technology accessible to and capable of being applied by beginners. A diverse set of educational media, such as CD-ROMs, TV and the Web, have been deployed as learning resources. We describe the agenda for the course; its object-oriented pedagogy and our strategy for delivery. We explain measures taken to avoid misconceptions about objects, our analysis and design method, and the Smalltalk programming environment we have developed specifically for learners and which is crucial to our approach. We outline how our adherence to the separation of view and domain model leads to technical innovations. Concluding remarks reflect on the benefits a reflexive strategy, both in education and training.