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Shares perspectives on the challenges faced by educational institutions in adopting an object approach to learning software development or teaching object technology. Need to introduce object-oriented concepts; Questions outlined to better understand the idea behind object technology; Outline of the practical areas which serves as a guide for the practice of teaching and learning object technology.

To support teachers to implement Computer Science curricula into classrooms from the very first year of school, teachers, schools and organisations seek quality curriculum resources to support implementation and teacher professional development. Until now, many Computer Science resources and outreach initiatives have targeted K-12 school-age children, with the intention to engage children and increase interest, rather than to formally teach concepts and skills. What is the educational quality of existing Computer Science resources and to what extent are they suitable for classroom learning and teaching? In this paper, an assessment framework is presented to evaluate the quality of online Computer Science resources. Further, a semi-systematic review of available online Computer Science resources was conducted to evaluate resources available for classroom learning and teaching and to identify gaps in resource availability, using the Australian curriculum as a case study analysis. The findings reveal a predominance of quality resources, however, a number of critical gaps were identified. This paper provides recommendations and guidance for the development of new and supplementary resources and future research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this study we empirically investigate the claim that articles published in computer science education journals are more methodologically sound than articles published in computer science education conference proceedings. A random sample of 352 articles was selected from those articles published in major computer science education forums between 2000 and 2005. Each article was then coded in terms of five indicators of methodological quality. It was found that there were no practically or statistically significant differences between the articles published in journals and those published in conference proceedings on any of the indicators of methodological quality. One implication of this finding is that those who evaluate the academic output of computer science education researchers should be wary of arbitrarily prescribing more academic merit to journal publications than conference publications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore how students used two resources, the in-class lecture and the online newsgroup, to write computer programs. By focusing on the questions students asked in each setting, we compare these two learning environments. Questions students asked during lecture typically related to the material the instructor was presenting. In contrast, questions posted to the newsgroup focused on the problems students encountered while programming. The responses posted to the newsgroup varied from providing syntax and resources to offering emotional support. We provide data that demonstrates that the newsgroup was an invaluable resource in this course as it supplied personalized, just-in-time help that allowed students to make progress on their programming assignments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a summary of the pedagogical patterns project. The project started in 1996 with the aim of collecting and disseminating experiences of teaching and learning about object technology. We adopted a pattern format early on, although the specific format has evolved over time. In this paper we give an overall view of the project: where it started, how the material we have collected has evolved and matured, and where we need to go from here. More material from the project is available from our website www.pedagogicalpatterns.org, and our publication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The need for computing education in the K-12 curriculum has grown globally. The Republic of Korea is not an exception. In response to the need, the Korean Ministry of Education has announced an outline for software-centric computing education in the K-12 system, which aims at enhancing the current computing education with software emphasis. In this paper, we review the outline from a higher education perspective and provide insights into its constructive improvement based on our experience in computer science education in higher education and a study of global initiatives on computing education. We also consider the social environment for computing education in Korea. In the proposed implementation, we first discuss goals for software-centric computing education and identify areas of focus. The identified areas are discussed in terms of topics to be covered and appropriate exposure of knowledge depth in the three levels in the Korean K-12 system. We then discuss necessary preparations for the success of the plan from academic, governmental and social perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Computer science education should not be based on short-term developments but on content that is observable in multiple domains of computer science, may be taught at every intellectual level, will be relevant in the longer term, and is related to everyday language and/or thinking. Recently, a catalogue of central concepts for computer science education such as algorithm, computer, and data has been empirically determined. This paper now concentrates on central processes relevant for computer science education. Experts of computer science rated 44 general-education processes regarding four criteria. By using a cluster analysis approach the following central processes for computer science education have been identified: problem solving and problem posing, analyzing, generalizing, finding relationships, classifying, and investigating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When students in our upper division software engineering courses at Utah Stat University expressed lack of confidence in their understanding of how all pieces of software development fit together, we chose to offer a one-day “Design-n-Code Fest” workshop. The workshop would take the students through key parts of the development process for a software project (i.e. from systems analysis through implementation and unit testing). This paper describes our experiences with three such workshops, what actually happened, what we learned, and what we plan to do for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Operating systems is an example of a subject that, with the right tools, can be taught in an applied manner, giving students the opportunity to understand, and hence appreciate, the fundamentals of commercial operating systems such as Unix and Windows. Not surprisingly, the tools needed in an operating systems course are, at a minimum, a hardware testbed and a programming language into which algorithms can be translated. This paper describes how many of the salient points concerning operating systems, such as concurrency and critical regions, can be covered in an applied manner using the PC, the C programming language, and extensions to C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educators in the computing fields are often familiar with the characterization of computing as a combination of theoretical, scientific, and engineering traditions. That distinction is often used to guide the work and disciplinary self-identity of computing professionals. But the distinction is, by no means, an easy one. The three traditions of computing are based on different principles, they have different aims, they employ different methods, and their products are very different. Educators in the field of computing should be aware of the fundamental differences between the traditions of computing so that they can offer their students a truthful and balanced view about computing branches. In this article the three traditions of computing are presented and some of their underlying assumptions, principles, application areas, restrictions, and weaknesses are portrayed. Also, some of the landmark arguments in the debates about the identity of computing disciplines are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Practical programming is one of the basic skills pursued in computer science education. On programming courses, the coursework consists of programming assignments that need to be assessed from different points of view. Since the submitted assignments are executable programs with a formal structure, some features can be assessed automatically. The basic requirement for automated assessment is the numerical measurability of assessment targets, but semiautomatic approaches can overcome this restriction. Recognizing automatically assessable features can help teachers to create educational models, where automatic tools let teachers concentrate their work on the learning issues that need student-teacher interaction the most. Several automatic tools for both static and dynamic assessment of computer programs have been reported in the literature. This article promotes these issues by surveying several automatic approaches for assessing programming assignments. Not all the existing tools will be covered, simply because of the vast number of them. The article concentrates on bringing forward different assessment techniques and approaches to give an interested reader starting points for finding further information in the area. Automatic assessment tools can be used to help teachers in grading tasks as well as to support students' working process with automatic feedback. Common advantages of automation are the speed, availability, consistency and objectivity of assessment. However, automatic tools emphasize the need for careful pedagogical design of the assignment and assessment settings. To effectively share the knowledge and good assessment solutions already developed, better interoperability and portability of the tools is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]