ON THE IMPORTANCE OF VISUALIZING IN PROGRAMMING EDUCATION

Peter Bellström, Claes Thorén

2010

Abstract

In this paper we address the importance of visualizing in programming education. In doing so, we describe three contributions to the research field. First we describe an initial study on visualizing the Bubble Sort algorithm. The Bubble Sort algorithm has been chosen since it contains several parts that in the past have been troublesome for several students taking introductory programming courses. Secondly, we describe a design for how visualization can be inserted into programming education. In that design we again use the Bubble Sort algorithm as an illustrating example. Thirdly, we present a classification of four visual programming environments: Alice, BlueJ, Greenfoot and Scratch. In the classification we have positioned each visual programming environment in a matrix comprised of the granularity dimension and the visualization dimension. All three presented contributions to the research field of visualization should contribute to an understanding of abstract programming concepts starting with problem or application instead of syntax. Students lacking scientific mathematics and students taking an introductory programming course based on e-Learning should benefit the most of the presented contributions.

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Paper Citation


in Harvard Style

Bellström P. and Thorén C. (2010). ON THE IMPORTANCE OF VISUALIZING IN PROGRAMMING EDUCATION . In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - Volume 5: ICEIS, ISBN 978-989-8425-08-9, pages 131-136. DOI: 10.5220/0002871601310136


in Bibtex Style

@conference{iceis10,
author={Peter Bellström and Claes Thorén},
title={ON THE IMPORTANCE OF VISUALIZING IN PROGRAMMING EDUCATION},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - Volume 5: ICEIS,},
year={2010},
pages={131-136},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0002871601310136},
isbn={978-989-8425-08-9},
}


in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - Volume 5: ICEIS,
TI - ON THE IMPORTANCE OF VISUALIZING IN PROGRAMMING EDUCATION
SN - 978-989-8425-08-9
AU - Bellström P.
AU - Thorén C.
PY - 2010
SP - 131
EP - 136
DO - 10.5220/0002871601310136