Exploring Teaching Programming Online Through Web Conferencing System: The Lens of Activity Theory

The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand activities and behaviors of learners and instructor in an online programming course. Adobe Connect web conferencing system was used as a delivery platform. A total of fifty-six sophomore students attending a computer education and instructional technology program (online) participated in this study. Data were collected through observations of twenty-two online course recordings and semi-structured interviews. The findings were discussed through Mwanza’s Activity notations based on Activity Theory. The results indicated that, by using web conferencing tools, students could develop programming knowledge through the learning tasks by interacting each other. The instructor acted as a key role in constructing the online learning community. Opportunities of getting instant feedback, acting in online collaborative activities and sharing features of the system contributed to students’ learning. Also, it is suggested that; both conceptual and strategic structures of the programming courses should be taken into consideration while using web conferencing.