More and more software development tools are available in the cloud, with tools like Replit, CodingRooms, GitHub Codespaces, Amazon Web Services Cloud9, JetBrains and Eclipse all offering online tools for developers to code collaboratively in the cloud. Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) which have traditionally been available as “fatter” clients are increasingly available as “thinner” web-based clients running in a browser. These tools can lower some of the barriers to installation and maintenance for their users. What are the strengths and weaknesses of these new tools for teaching introductory programming courses? Join us on Monday 6th February at 2pm GMT to discuss a paper by Phil Hackett and his colleagues at the Open University on this very topic [1], from the abstract:
This paper discusses a pilot research project, which investigated the use of online collaborative IDEs (Integrated development environments) during a first-year computing degree course. The IDEs used can be described as virtual computing labs because they replicate some of the actions possible in physical computing labs. Students were supported by a tutor with real-time help and feedback provided, whilst they were programming, without being collocated. The use of two different platforms is considered with the benefits and drawbacks discussed. Students and tutors indicated that they would like to use a virtual computing lab approach in the future.
We’ll be joined by the lead author of the paper Phil Hackett, who’ll give us a lightning talk summary of the paper to kick-off our journal club discussion. The paper was presented at Computing Education Practice (CEP) in Durham earlier this month. [1]
All welcome, as usual we’ll be meeting on zoom, details at sigcse.cs.manchester.ac.uk/join-us.
References
- Phil Hackett, Michel Wermelinger, Karen Kear and Chris Douce (2023) Using a Virtual Computing Lab to Teach Programming at a Distance in CEP ’23: Proceedings of 7th Conference on Computing Education Practice Pages 5–8 DOI:10.1145/3573260.3573262