WAPE - a system for distance learning of programming

A challenging research goal is the development of advanced Web-based educational applications that can offer some amount of adaptivity and intelligence. In the paper the WAPE project being under development as an intelligent and adaptive environment for supporting distance learning of programming is presented. The WAPE system supports users of four types: students, instructors, lecturers and administrators. Users access WAPE through a standard Web-browser, which present HTML-document provided by the HTTP server on the server side. After authorization of the user as a student, the appropriate menu shell is opened. The WAPE system supports the following tree levels of learning process: (1) when a student learns theoretical material in a specific domain with the help of hypertext textbook, (2) when the system tests student's conceptual knowledge concerning theoretical material learned, (3) when a student under the control of the system solves the practical educational problems (projects). The third level is assumed to be the main one in using the system; in order to learn a course supported by WAPE a student has to perform several individual projects: tasks and exercises. Any course supported by WAPE is based on a knowledge model which consists of a finite set of concepts and some relations on it. For any concept s a model of a student x includes a grade of knowledge that x has on s. We use four grades which divide all students on experts, advanced students, beginners or novices with respect to s. The student model is used to provide the student x with the most suitable individually planned sequence of concepts to learn and the projects to solve. For example, every time when the student x is going to solve a project the system checks whether all prerequisite concepts are sufficiently known by x. If not, the student x cannot begin to solve the project.