Nikolai Tillmann
Manuel Fahndrich
Judith Bishop
Tao Xie
ABSTRACT
From paper to computers, the way that we have been writing down thoughts and performing symbolic computations has been constantly evolving. Teaching methods closely follow this trend, leveraging existing technology to make teaching more effective and preparing students for their later careers with the available technology. Right now, in 2012, we are in the middle of another technology shift: instead of using PCs and laptops, mobile devices are becoming more prevalent for most everyday computing tasks. In fact, never before in human history were incredibly powerful and versatile computing devices such as smartphones available and adopted so broadly. We propose that computer programming, and thus the teaching of programming, can and should be done directly on the mobile devices themselves, without the need for a separate PC or laptop to write code. Programming on smartphones that we carry around with us at all times means instant gratification for students, as they can show their games and applications to their friends, and it means that students can do their homework or additional practicing at all times. We describe TouchDevelop, a novel mobile programming environment, and call out challenges that need to be overcome and opportunities that it creates.
- J. Barbosa, R. Hahn, D. N. F. Barbosa, and C. F. R. Geyer. Mobile and ubiquitous computing in an innovative undergraduate course. In Proceedings of the 38th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education, SIGCSE '07, pages 379--383, New York, NY, USA, 2007. ACM. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- T.-W. Chan, J. Roschelle, S. Hsi, Kinshuk, M. Sharples, T. Brown, C. Patton, J. C. Cherniavsky, R. D. Pea, C. Norris, E. Soloway, N. Balacheff, M. Scardamalia, P. Dillenbourg, C.-K. Looi, M. Milrad, and H. U. Hoppe. One-to-one technology-enhanced learning: an opportunity for global research collaboration. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning, 1(1):3--29, 2006.Google ScholarCross Ref
- M. H. Goadrich and M. P. Rogers. Smart smartphone development: ios versus android. In Proceedings of the 42nd ACM technical symposium on Computer science education, SIGCSE '11, pages 607--612, New York, NY, USA, 2011. ACM. Google ScholarDigital Library
- T. Jenkins. On the difficulty of learning to program. Language, 4:53--58, 2002.Google Scholar
- S. Kurkovsky. Engaging students through mobile game development. In Proceedings of the 40th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education, SIGCSE '09, pages 44--48, New York, NY, USA, 2009. ACM. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Q. Mahmoud and P. Popowicz. A mobile application development approach to teaching introductory programming. In Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), 2010 IEEE, pages T4F--1 --T4F--6, oct. 2010.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Q. H. Mahmoud. Best practices in teaching mobile application development. In Proceedings of the 16th annual joint conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education, ITiCSE '11, pages 333--333, New York, NY, USA, 2011. ACM. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Q. H. Mahmoud and A. Dyer. Mobile devices in an introductory programming course. Computer, 41:108--107, June 2008. Google ScholarDigital Library
- M. Pasamontes, J. Guzman, F. Rodriguez, M. Berenguel, and S. Dormido. Easy mobile device programming for educational purposes. In Decision and Control, 2005 and 2005 European Control Conference. CDC-ECC '05. 44th IEEE Conference on, pages 3420 -- 3425, dec. 2005.Google ScholarCross Ref
- M. Sharples. The design of personal mobile technologies for lifelong learning. Comput. Educ., 34:177--193, April 2000. Google ScholarDigital Library
- N. Tillmann, M. Moskal, J. de Halleux, and M. Fahndrich. Touchdevelop: programming cloud-connected mobile devices via touchscreen. In Proceedings of the 10th SIGPLAN symposium on New ideas, new paradigms, and reflections on programming and software, ONWARD '11, pages 49--60, New York, NY, USA, 2011. ACM. Google ScholarDigital Library
- S. Uludag, M. Karakus, and S. W. Turner. Implementing it0/cs0 with scratch, app inventor for android, and lego mindstorms. In Proceedings of the 2011 conference on Information technology education, SIGITE '11, pages 183--190, New York, NY, USA, 2011. ACM. Google ScholarDigital Library
- D. Wolber. App inventor and real-world motivation. In Proceedings of the 42nd ACM technical symposium on Computer science education, SIGCSE '11, pages 601--606, New York, NY, USA, 2011. ACM. Google ScholarDigital Library
- D. Wolber, H. Abelson, E. Spertus, and L. Looney. App Inventor - Create Your Own Android Apps. O'Reilly, 2011.Google Scholar
Index Terms
- The future of teaching programming is on mobile devices
Recommendations
Teaching programming on a mobile device
ITiCSE '12: Proceedings of the 17th ACM annual conference on Innovation and technology in computer science educationFrom paper to computers, the way we have been writing down thoughts and performing symbolic computations has been constantly evolving. Teaching methods closely follow this trend, leveraging existing technology to make teaching more effective and ...
Engage your students by teaching programming using only mobile devices with TouchDevelop (abstract only)
SIGCSE '12: Proceedings of the 43rd ACM technical symposium on Computer Science EducationWe are experiencing a technology shift: Powerful and easy-to-use touchscreen-based mobile devices like smartphones and tablets are becoming more prevalent than traditional PCs and laptops. We propose that computer programming, and thus teaching of ...
TouchDevelop: app development on mobile devices
FSE '12: Proceedings of the ACM SIGSOFT 20th International Symposium on the Foundations of Software EngineeringMobile devices are becoming the prevalent computing platform for most people. TouchDevelop is a new mobile development environment that enables anyone with a Windows Phone to create new apps directly on the smartphone, without a PC or a traditional ...
Comments