In this paper we present some ideas and tools for involving real programs in educational contexts. The ideas are based on a paradigm called elucidative programming, which we will motivate and introduce. The tool is the Java Elucidator, with which it is possible to produce a web of Java programs and explanations. We will discuss the usage of the elucidative paradigm both from the teacher’s persp...

This article intends to accentuate the contribution of Computer Science Education (CSE) fostering key competencies. Besides an outline of its contribution to convey general education a first approach of a competence model will be presented. It is elaborated within the project MoKoM granted by the German Research Foundation (DFG), which is proposed to cover competence aspects concerning informat...

The dream of an electronic textbook has been actively pursued for at least two decades. Goals include (i) improving exposition through a richer collection of technologies than are available through print textbooks, and (ii) increase student engagement with the material, in order to get them to learn at a higher level in Bloom’s taxonomy (Naps et al., 2002). Instead of merely viewing material, w...

The recent enthusiastic reception of the MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) project has significantly improved the general awareness of Open Courseware (OC). However, many other lesser known projects and resources can also be classified as OC. The OC movement can potentially provide a vast pool of resources to satisfy diverse needs of Computer Science (CS) educators. However, there are only limited discu...

Computer science students come from the gamer generation. A generation accustomed to receiving instant feedback and constant reward for action. This expectation creates tension between traditional assessment models and the learning style of the gamers taking our courses. In this paper we discuss how game design principles can be used as part of modern instructional design. We then present two c...

Main styles, or paradigms of programming – imperative, functional, logic, and object-oriented – are shortly described and compared, and corresponding programming techniques are outlined. Programming languages are classified in accordance with the main style and techniques supported. It is argued that profound education in computer science should include learning base programming techniques of a...

Sociocultural theories of learning such as Wenger and Lave’s situated learning have been suggested as alternatives to cognitive theories of learning like constructivism. This article examines situated learning within the context of computer science (CS) education. Situated learning accurately describes some CS communities like open-source software development, but it is not applicable to other ...

This paper examines two statements regarding computer science as a discipline and its theoretical basis. We shall demonstrate how those statements are questionable and in addition they tend to hide the real root-causes of some significant educational issues. Those statements are very popular in the scientific community and have noteworthy negative effect on the researchers who frequently double...

To be knowledgeable in a subject matter is a prerequisite of being competent. Experts typically possess densely connected structural knowledge of the concepts in their field of expertise. Therefore, investigating the knowledge structures of learners remains a central aspect of educational research in computer science as well as in other subjects, despite the ongoing trend towards outcome and co...

In this paper, we investigated the role of content and processes as they relate to games and programming in post-secondary computer science courses. Our examination found themes that can help computer science instructors teach both introductory and advanced programming topics. Our analysis was focused primarily on the theoretical and practical subject matter that is taught in game programming c...