PAPER

USAGE OF TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED EDUCATIONAL TOOLS FOR DELIVERING PROGRAMMING COURSES

Usage of Technology Enhanced Educational

Tools for Delivering Programming Courses
http://dx.doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v6i4.1796

M. Ivanović 1, S. Xinogalos2 and Ž. Komlenov1

1University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia
2 University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece

Abstract—Methods and approaches behind technology In this paper we have examined a number of issues
enhanced learning (TEL) in programming courses at a affecting learning design and quality of those courses at
university level encourage continuous research in the last 20 both institutions. Based on the performed quantitative and
years. Still there is no generally applicable way that would qualitative analysis, the history of our two courses and
guarantee success. In this paper some experiences gathered their current state is evaluated in order to extract some key
during years of a technology-enhanced approach in teaching recommendations for planning, designing, deployment,
Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) at two universities in and evaluation of similar courses.
two countries are presented and compared. Emphasis is In the following sections we present information
given on the technology-enhanced educational tools that
regarding the OOP course profile and the application of
were selected or developed by the two institutions for
TEL at UNS-PMF and UOM-TMD. Specifically, in
teaching OOP. Different traditions and independent
section II we present the aims, the teaching approach
development at both institutions allow us to draw generally
applicable conclusions and recommendations.
utilized and the learning design of the course at both
institutions. In section III, we present how both
Index Terms—E-learning, Object-oriented programming, institutions apply TEL at their OOP courses, and in
Teaching programming, Technology-enhanced learning section IV we give some remarks on students’ and
teachers’ experiences and opinions regarding these
courses. Finally, some conclusions are drawn based on the
I. INTRODUCTION experiences and the comparison of the applied approaches
at our institutions.
Pedagogical theories and methodologies underpinning
technology-enhanced learning in introductory
II. COURSE PROFILE
programming courses attract teachers’ community and
foster continuous research at least since the end of the At both UNS-PMF and UOM-TMD it is required that
nineties. However, it still has not led to a generally the majority of second year bachelor students master
applicable way of teaching and learning that would essentials of Java and OOP and become able to use
guarantee the best possible success under the given fundamental concepts of OOP while building at least
circumstances. This intrigued and inspired us to analyze, simple software solutions. Therefore, it was not difficult to
present, and compare selected experiences gathered during identify common goals of our two courses [2]:
nearly a decade of technology-enhanced approach in • focus on fundamental OO software development
teaching object-oriented programming languages (OOP) at tasks and programming concepts rather than simply
university level, with specific focus on Java. learning Java constructs;
The analysis of the approaches and technological tools • comprehending and using standard library classes;
employed was conducted at two universities in two
• analyzing/extending existing user-defined classes;
countries (Serbia and Greece). Our motivation is to try to
give recommendations for delivering an introductory • designing simple OO applications;
course on OOP using TEL. Our institutions apply some of • implementing programs in Java.
the existing methods and use a set of suitable software Students willing to cope with advanced Java concepts,
tools to enhance everyday teaching practice. motivated by the requirements from business [3], can
Within CS1 course, at the University of Novi Sad, further upgrade their Java programming knowledge in
Faculty of Sciences (UNS-PMF) Modula-2 is used, and at subsequent courses offered at their university or by self-
the Technology Management Department at the studying [1].
University of Macedonia (UOM-TMD) the programming
language C is used. Imperative first approach is adopted at A. Teaching Methodology
both institutions. OOP is taught at both institutions within Teaching methodologies applied within programming
a subsequent course based on Java, a programming courses depend on a wide range of factors: students’
language that is widely accepted and proven in practice as motivation, good balance between theoretical and
a good language and platform for an introductory course practical aspects of teaching, tradition of teaching at a
on OOP [1]. Thus, students entering the OOP course particular university, teacher’s specific teaching style, etc.
possess preliminary programming experiences and they Even though the university community adopted the object-
are already familiar with concepts and principles of data orientation as an appropriate paradigm with strong
structures and algorithms. expectations, it appears that it is not a particularly easy

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USAGE OF TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED EDUCATIONAL TOOLS FOR DELIVERING PROGRAMMING COURSES

task [4] and needs a lot of effort to adjust the teaching Next, the BlueJ IDE and Java are used for presenting
style and methodology appropriately. the main concepts of OO design and programming.
The traditional method of teaching OOP at UNS-PMF Students use the interactive interface of BlueJ in order to
was to use the typical face-to-face lectures together with construct objects, invoke their methods and inspect their
assigning students programming problems to solve. This state without having to write from the very beginning a
method, however, worked well only for good students main method. However, these interactive features of BlueJ
with high analytical problem-solving skills. Even if are used with caution, since their extensive usage can
complemented with an applied, hands-on, approach, it favor the appearance of specific difficulties and
lacks specific mechanisms to provide all the students with misconceptions regarding the dynamic aspects of OOP
equal chances to grasp the programming concepts the [15], [16]. The Jeliot extension for BlueJ is also used for
instructor aims to convey. supporting students in comprehending the dynamics of
OO programs. In the middle of the course the professional
Since UNS-PMF believes that programming skills and
IDE JCreator is also presented and students are left free to
techniques should be acquired in interaction with other
decide on their own which environment fits better to their
people and from a wide variety of sources, the current
needs.
UNS-PMF practice applies blended learning modus by
supporting the traditional course with online tools for Overall, the adopted approach is “objects-first” (within
delivery of self-study instructional units, assignments, the course), iterative (important concepts are taught first
topic-specific discussions, various types of online and often), and project-driven. The use of the technology-
examinations, and other pedagogical aids. Software enhanced environments objectKarel and BlueJ plays an
solutions that are used to support such a delivery of important role in applying this teaching approach. Both
blended OOP course are: experience and the results of the long-term evaluation of
the course have shown that the combined use of these
• learning management system (LMS) Moodle [5] for environments has positive results [17].
course organization, (adaptive) delivery of additional
resources [6], and a variety of communication, As is the case for UNS-PMF, UOM-TMD also uses an
collaboration and testing facilities, LMS, called CoMPUs. However, this is mainly an
asynchronous e-learning platform that was implemented
• custom-made Web-based tutoring system within the for supporting course management for all the departments
integrated learning environment named MILE [7], at the University of Macedonia and does not have any
which provides additional learning resources and adaptivity features. CoMPUs is used for: organizing and
provides high interactivity, offering many examples delivering the educational material and additional
and exercises, resources to students, collaboration and communication,
• IDEs, namely BlueJ [8] and a little bit further in the assigning projects to students and collecting their
semester Eclipse [9], for presenting the main assignments.
concepts of OO design and programming during It can be concluded that both institutions are convinced
theoretical exercises, as well as for solving optional that programming skills should be best acquired in
homework assignments and students’ self-practice in interaction although some aspects of the actual
general, pedagogical methodology at employed software tools may
• code visualization tools like Jeliot [10] for providing differ. UNS-PMF practices blended-learning modus by
concrete representation of the dynamic aspects of offering a wealth of (adaptive) self-study material to
presented programs and improving students’ students, together with modern and efficient, semi-
attention, automated assessment of their work performed in lab
• in-house submission system called Svetovid [11], for using specialized custom tools. UOM-TMD focuses
efficient collection of students’ solutions to practical explicitly on the proven benefits brought by the
assignments and their timely and efficient grading. microworld approach to teaching programming and the
The course at UOM-TMD is based on the microworld chosen set of tools, together with practicing a project-
approach to teaching programming [12] and the driven approach within lectures, labs and homework
educational IDE BlueJ [8]. First, a brief (2 weeks) assignments as well.
introduction to OOP concepts takes place based on the
microworld objectKarel [13] with the aim of familiarizing B. Learning Design
students with the most fundamental OOP concepts in a At UNS-PMF the course consists of 2 hours per week
clear and intuitive way. objectKarel is based on Karel++ of lectures, 2 hours per week of theoretical exercises and
[14], the well-known metaphor of the world of robots additional 2 hours per week of lab exercises (during the
carrying out various tasks in a restricted world. It semester that lasts for 12-13 weeks). In the lectures the
constitutes a learning environment that incorporates: teacher explains crucial OO concepts using PowerPoint
• a learning module with brief and concise theory and slides and excerpts of code implementing the concepts
hands on activities for familiarizing students with the presented, while within theoretical exercises students are
taught concepts before they are asked to implement confronted with complete Java programs/solutions for
them, different problems, as illustrations of the theoretical
concepts acquired in the previous lectures.
• a programming environment, incorporating a
structure editor for developing programs, enhanced Within the following lab exercises, attended by 10-15
error reporting for the very few syntactical and students at the designated time slot, some practical
semantical errors that can arise, program animation assignments are solved individually, ranging from very
with immediate feedback on the depicted world of simple and straightforward ones in the first couple of
robots and explanatory visualization. weeks, to rather complex ones at the end of semester.

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Their effort is analyzed and graded on weekly basis, so student’s grade is formed in the final oral exam.
they form one part of their final grades (30%) in small Homework is given only from time to time, and is not
steps. A special custom environment Svetovid [11] is used graded, since the focus is on regular evaluation of the
to provide students with simple mechanisms for editing work performed in controlled lab environment using
and testing their code, but also to prevent cheating and custom tools that integrate mechanisms for prevention of
allow teachers to grade all the solutions promptly and cheating. These practical assignments, together with three
effectively. interim theoretical tests serve, like at UOM-TMD, for
The mentioned final grades are based on max. 30 points getting insights in the progress made and acknowledging
for solving practical assignments, and max. 30 points potential difficulties and misconceptions so that they can
collected in three interim theoretical tests that in fact focus be addressed timely and appropriately.
on testing students’ problem-solving skills using the
newly gained knowledge. Students are required to gather III. TECHNOLOGY-ENHANCED LEARNING
at least 30 out of a total of 60 points to approach the final TEL can have a considerable influence on the
oral exam (which is worth additional 40 points, i.e. the improvement of students’ attitudes towards learning,
remaining percentage of the final grade). enhancing their success, increasing communication among
At UOM-TMD the course consists of 2 hours per week students and teachers, and giving them confidence to
of lectures and 2 hours per week of compulsory lab study advanced subjects without pressure [18].
exercises (during a 13-week long semester). So, in Recognizing these advantages in teaching programming,
comparison with UNS-PMF the course is taught 2 hours both institutions apply blended learning style in their OOP
less per week. Actually this means that what is achieved at courses, though using different educational tools.
lectures and theoretical exercises at UNS-PMF must be UNS-PMF identified the important goals that should be
achieved solely at lectures at UOM-TMD. In the lectures met when conducting a blended programming course, in
BlueJ’s projects and PowerPoint presentations are used. particular its online component, in:
Specifically, each lecture starts with posing a specific real-
• content organization and presentation, including
world problem that has to be modeled with an object-
basic teaching material and additional, flexible self-
oriented program. A brief discussion takes place in class,
study resources,
in order to identify the classes needed for modeling the
system. First, a simplified UML class diagram is • providing efficient communication and evaluation
presented and then the OO concepts which are used as facilities.
basis for the implementation of the underlying classes. In The course conductors at this institution agree with
several cases students are given excerpts of code current experiences of other universities that programming
implementing the concepts presented, or even brief tests languages can be successfully taught in Web-based
for evaluating their understanding of the presented environments and LMSs. Therefore, LMS Moodle [5] is
concepts. In the lab, students solve assignments, with or used for basic course organization and presentation of
without the teacher’s guidance. Those assignments are study material. The course is divided into twenty six
sometimes submitted before leaving the lab through the sections: sixteen core segments and ten additional ones
asynchronous e-learning platform CoMPUs. Furthermore, covering advanced Java topics. It consists of traditional
within each lab exercise students are assigned homework static teaching material, adaptive eLessons, and a mix of
that has to be submitted within one week. various synchronous and asynchronous activities and
Students’ final grade consists of: 20 points collected in resources, such as quizzes, glossaries, wikis, and
the lab and by solving homework programming discussion fora. Besides that, some of the resources used
assignments; 20 points from middle-term, open-book during lab exercises are presented, together with practical
exams on paper; 60 points from final-term exams. The assignments that are formulated and graded online, but
aim of the course, as we mentioned in section II, is for solved individually during regular classes.
students to be able to comprehend and use fundamental For self-studying purposes two possibilities are offered:
OOP concepts for implementing OO programs. So, using eLessons developed in Moodle, extended with basic
emphasis is given on lab and homework programming personalization features [6], and/or using Mag, a custom
assignments that require several hours of work during the Web-based tutoring system which is a part of the
whole semester. The fact that the points granted for these integrated learning environment MILE [7] that supports
programming projects constitute a small percentage of the teaching, learning and student assessment.
final grade is due to the lack of an automated mechanism The course can be characterized as learner-centered
for preventing cheating. However, experience has shown since, although presenting equivalents to face-to-face
and students have knowledge of the fact that devoting lectures, adaptive eLessons implemented in Moodle offer
time to their programming assignments guarantees success students a possibility to take as much time as they need to
in both exams. The middle-term exam has the aim of explore the available content. They can explicitly choose
assessing students’ knowledge, while giving both the different paths or can be directed to different parts of the
teacher and the students the chance to acknowledge instructional material depending on their answers to the
difficulties and misconceptions and take actions for encountered questions, i.e. their previous and newly
tackling them in time. acquired knowledge.
Similar conclusions have been made at UNS-PMF as Mag is as well intended to be used by students who
well, but thanks to the specialized tools that are employed need additional explanations of basic OO and Java
to support the efficient, semi-automated assessment of concepts presented in a more relaxed and simpler way. As
students’ progress in online theoretical tests as well as addition to the teaching material Mag offers many simple
during and after lab exercises during which students examples and elements of scaffolding teaching and
produce a lot of code on weekly bases, only 40% of the

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visualization that help students in understanding and At UOM-TMD teaching and learning is based, as we
adopting difficult OO concepts. have already mentioned, on two distinct technology-
For testing students’ knowledge two different enhanced programming environments: the microworld
mechanisms are applied: Moodle’s Quiz module for objectKarel and the educational IDE BlueJ.
testing theoretical knowledge and problem-solving skills, The University’s asynchronous e-learning platform
and special submission system Svetovid [11] for called CoMPUs is used for course management and
collecting and semi-automatic assessment of students’ delivery of material. The features of the platform used
code, i.e. solutions to programming assignments created mostly for supporting students in learning, are:
during lab exercises. Both solutions help course • Calendar: it is kept updated with the lessons carried
conductors in preventing various irregularities and out, their content, and information for the associated
obtaining an objective process of grading students’ educational material that is available in the platform.
accomplishments.
• Documents: this tool presents students with a
Within Moodle, small tests for self-evaluation of structure of folders corresponding to the lectures.
learning progress are sprinkled throughout eLessons. For Each folder is enabled when a lecture is carried out
grading purposes, three major interim quizzes are and contains all the necessary educational material
conducted during the semester. A pool of over 250 used at lectures and labs: PowerPoint presentations,
questions has been created, consisting mainly of problem- programming projects, commented programs and
solving questions similar to those used in Sun’s Java quizzes.
Certification Exams. Tests are created and solved using
Moodle’s Quiz module and in the controlled lab • Students’ assignments: a tool used for accessing
environment, in order to prevent cheating as much as information about the weekly homework
possible. Moodle’s gradebook functionality is used for assignments, as well as for submitting them in the
administration of all points and final grades. predefined deadline.
To leverage the effort of lab activities and grading • Discussion forum: the forum is organized in sections
students’ solutions to programming assignments, teaching that correspond to lectures, as well as a section for
assistants use Svetovid. Apart from rather standard general topics. Students can post their question/
functionalities, Svetovid incorporates certain additional comment and their colleagues and/or the teacher can
characteristics: respond.
The features of CoMPUs utilized mostly by the teacher
• allowing students to code their solutions comfortably
for course management are:
with the help of a structure editor with reduced set of
functionalities in comparison to other available IDEs; • Description of the course: this area contains a
• allowing beginners to familiarize themselves with the description of the didactical aims and the content of
concepts of the specific units rather than writing a the course, the available educational material, the
program from the beginning (experiments via already textbooks, the software needed, students’ obligations
prepared tests); and grading policy. This information is available
from the beginning of the course and constitutes a
• incorporating significant part of standard Java clear didactical contract between the students and the
documentation, extended instruction set and hints, teacher.
which helps students to quickly refresh things
necessary for problem they have been solving; • Students’ assignments: the tool is used by the teacher
for assigning homework to students, collecting their
• detecting and reporting understandable and solutions and downloading them organized in a
informative error messages; separate folder per student. A spreadsheet with the
• helping instructors to promptly and safely collect and assignments submitted by each student can be
grade student solutions. downloaded, as well as the final grades if the
Regarding communication and collaboration tools, assignments are graded online.
UNS-PMF mainly uses adequate Moodle features • Announcements: announcements can be sent by email
(discussion fora, instant messages, integrated mailing to all enrolled students.
facilities, chat sessions, wikis, and blogs). These Experience has shown that the platform supports both
mechanisms allow students to share ideas, help each other teaching and learning, in various ways: students are
to solve common issues, post their inquiries or reactions to always kept informed for all the issues concerning the
a course (or group) discussion forum, to contact the course (lectures, labs, assignments, exams); the
teachers and get feedback just in time when a piece of educational material is easily accessible from anywhere;
advice is needed. the material can be very easily updated by the teacher
However, as it is proven in literature [19], students are depending on students’ needs; assignment and submission
not very eager to use e-learning 2.0 of projects is simplified; there is a chance for
communication/collaboration capabilities like blogs and communication and cooperation among students and
wikis. Even more discouraging is the fact that less than teachers whenever it is needed. All the aforementioned
20% of students use discussion fora and instant messaging services are heavily used, except for the last one.
regularly. Most of the students actually report that they Although students are strongly encouraged to use the
still prefer personal communication or use e-mail instead. forum for communication and cooperation during
However, the majority of students agree that employing studying and carrying out programming assignments,
various ways of communication is indeed very practical experience has shown that it is poorly utilized.
and potentially useful. In addition, with the aim of supporting students in self-
studying, additional educational (SCORM-compliant)

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material is being prepared. This material will have the educational material (TI.4: 4.22), and the overall
form of a course delivered through the adaptive SCORM quality (TI.1: 4.27) of the course.
compliant LMS ProPer [20]. This material, combined with • The average scores for all the aforementioned criteria
the advantages of adaptivity, should, at least according to were higher for the OOP course than the
the experiences of UNS-PMF, support students that: face corresponding average scores for the 29 winter
difficulties with OOP, do not attend lectures regularly, or courses, a result that clearly shows students'
need to refresh/elaborate on their knowledge at some time satisfaction with the OOP course.
of their studies.
• Although students consider the course more difficult
Finally, an issue that has not yet been resolved is the than other courses (TI.6), and rather difficult in
adoption of an existing online tool or the implementation general, they devote less time to this course each
of a new one, for assessing students’ programs week (TI.7). Taking into account the fact that the
automatically and providing them with immediate number of students that fail the course is not higher
feedback. Such a solution, similar to the one employed at than that of other courses considered difficult, as well
UNS-PMF, would certainly bring lots of benefits to both as the fact that the course is one of the few that
students and teachers conducting lab exercises and employ weekly programming assignments and
evaluating homework assignments. middle-term exams we believe that the following
conclusion can be drawn: technology-enhanced
IV. STUDENT’S AND TEACHER’S EXPERIENCES teaching methodology and educational tools
During the last several years, at both institutions employed at the course are rather successful.
students regularly fill-in questionnaires to provide Similar survey was conducted at UNS-PMF as the
feedback for each particular course they take part in, course's evaluation at the end of the winter semester 2010-
usually towards the end of each semester. Students are 2011. The overall grade that the course received was 8.4
usually satisfied with the introductory OOP course, the on a 1-10 scale. Other specific course’s average scores for
teaching methodology and the style of grading that seven studied criteria are presented in Table II. According
teachers employ. They usually point out the great value of to the students’ opinions some important conclusions can
such a blended course to anyone who would like to learn be made at UNS-PMF as well:
basics of OO using Java in a pleasant and interesting way.
• As expected, most of the students felt that they had
The results of the UOM-TMD course's formal
enough pre-knowledge to follow the course (TII.1).
evaluation that took place towards the end of the winter
semester 2010-2011 are presented in Table I. Specifically, • Students evaluated rather positively the organization
the course's average score for seven different criteria, as and presentation (TII.2), the interest (TII.3) and the
well as the average score for the 29 winter courses offered up-to-datedness (TII.4) of the course, as well as the
at UOM-TMD are presented. For the first four questions applicability of the knowledge they gained in their
the score is in the scale 1-5 (1=not at all, 2=slightly, future work (TII.5).
3=averagely, 4=much, 5=very much). • The adequacy of the educational material available
The most important conclusions of the course's online and in paper versions was also ranked high
evaluation can be summarized as follows: (TII.6).
• Students evaluated positively the organization and • Since the survey participants were mainly students
presentation (TI.2: 4.26), the interest and that attended the classes regularly (TII.7), we can
contribution (TI.3: 4.14), the adequacy of the trust their opinions and their clear overall satisfaction
with the course.

TABLE I.
STATISTICS OF COURSE'S EVALUATION AT UOM-TMD

Question Average of OOP course Average of 29 winter courses

TI.1 Was the quality of the course high? 4.27 3.93

TI.2 Was the organization and presentation of the course flawless? 4.26 3.93
TI.3 Was the topic of the course interesting and useful for your studies? 4.14 3.98
The educational material (textbooks, notes, exercises, articles etc)
TI.4 4.22 3.80
was sufficient for the needs of the course?
Do you attend the lectures regularly? (1=not at all, 2=rarely, 3=quite
TI.5 4.45 4.24
often, 4 =very often, 5=always)
Based on your experience from other courses, this course is
TI.6 considered to be: (1=too easy, 2=easy, 3=of average difficulty, 3.80 3.48
4=difficult, 5=very difficult)
Besides the lectures and labs, how many hours do you devote to this
TI.7 course each week? (1=<2 hours, 2=2-4 hours, 3=4-6 hours, 4=6-8 1.65 1.81
hours, 5=> 8 hours)

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TABLE II.
STATISTICS OF COURSE'S EVALUATION AT UNS-PMF

Question Fully agree Partly agree Disagree Cannot tell

TII.1 I had enough pre-knowledge to follow the course. 30% 50% 10% 10%
TII.2 The organization and presentation of the course was flawless. 50% 20% 30% 0%
TII.3 The course’s topic and content are interesting. 30% 60% 10% 0%

TII.4 The course’s topic and content are up-to-date. 70% 30% 0% 0%
TII.5 The knowledge gained is applicable in practice. 70% 30% 0% 0%
The educational material used was appropriate for the needs of the
TII.6 80% 10% 10% 0%
course.
TII.7 I attended the lectures regularly. 60% 10% 30% 0%

• From the answers the students’ gave on additional the process of adopting such a system. However, it does
open-ended questions present in the survey it can be not think that it is necessary to integrate the development
concluded that the majority of them consider the environment with the submission and automated
OOP course to be more difficult than other courses evaluation system. It might be more effective to leave the
they attended, mainly because of the amount of work students free to use the IDE that suits better to their needs.
that they are required to perform on weekly basis by Of course, this approach has the disadvantage of potential
solving programming assignments. However, they cheating when the system is used during classes.
are aware of the benefits of such practice having in However, with the evolution of the course this is no more
mind their future work that will also depend heavily a big issue, since students have realized that cheating does
on practical programming skills and following strict not help them pass the course, while hands-on experience
deadlines. in programming does.
• Knowing that the number of students that fail the
OOP course is not higher than that of other courses at V. CONCLUSIONS
UNS-PMF, and taking into consideration all the In this paper we presented experiences of teaching OO
aspects of the course and student’s final results, we programming at two universities, comparing the applied
believe that once again it can be concluded that TEL approaches and methodologies, assessment strategies and
and specific tools that were employed within the effects that they impose. This comparison allowed us to
course proved to be rather successful. draw some common conclusions:
Teachers that are involved in these courses, claim that, • Objects-first approach is not necessary. Both
though online activities are fairly challenging supplements directions, top-down (object principles and interfaces
to traditional teaching and learning, they can significantly presented first) and bottom-up (structured
help students. As most of the facilities used for study programming and basic building blocks done first)
administration are integrated directly in the chosen LMSs, can work well if designed properly.
teachers agree on their positive impact on administrative • LMSs are necessary for efficient course management
workload reduction. Additionally, the available and delivery of educational material. With LMSs the
mechanisms enable teachers to produce readable, high educational material is easily accessible from
quality teaching material and improve communication anywhere and can be instantly updated by the teacher
with students. Different communication tools become vital depending on students’ needs; students are constantly
means of informing students on important course issues. kept informed for all the issues concerning the
UNS-PMF also has positive experiences with using course; assignment and submission of projects is
online tests for official assessment, as well as Svetovid’s simplified; communication and cooperation among
functionalities, since it prevents students to share their students and teachers is always possible. In the case
programs during classes, and increases the speed of that the LMS utilized is enhanced with adaptivity
students’ solutions assessment. Students, however, often features the benefits for learning are even greater.
state that testing conducted using computers causes • Online component is not enough. Although they can
additional pressure to them, provoked by evident time help and motivate students, sometimes online
limits and the possibility of hardware failure. Regarding activities are simply not enough. Students are
the use of Svetovid submission system, students especially reluctant to use contemporary Web 2.0
sometimes complain that the system is rigid, not tools. They still prefer e-mails or face-to-face
comfortable enough in comparison to other IDEs. encounters with teachers when they need additional
Therefore, finding a proper balance between students’ explanations on some course issues or content.
comfort and needed efficient security measures should be • Technology-enhanced educational programming
the overall mission for the future course runs. environments support students’ introduction to OOP.
UOM-TMD also appreciates the support provided both UOM-TMD gained very positive experience using
to students and teachers from automated evaluation of educational programming environments. The
students’ solutions to programming assignments and is in microworld objectKarel supports students greatly in

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iJET – Volume 6, Issue 4, December 2011 29

 PAPER
USAGE OF TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED EDUCATIONAL TOOLS FOR DELIVERING PROGRAMMING COURSES

Technologies, 7(2), 2009, pp. 44-62. http://dx.doi.org/10.4018/ S. Xinogalos is a lecturer at the Department of
jdet.2009040103 Technology Management, University of Macedonia,
[21] D. Verpoorten, C. Glahn, M. Kravcik, S. Ternier, and M. Specht, Naoussa, Greece (e-mail: [email protected]). He is author or
Personalisation of learning in virtual learning environments,
Proceedings of the EC-TEL conference, Lecture Notes in
co-author of 47 research papers on teaching and learning
Computer Science, Vol. 5794, 2009, pp. 52-66. OOP, didactics of programming, educational technology
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-04636-0_7 and programming environments. He has also designed and
implemented two educational programming environments.
AUTHORS Ž. Komlenov is a research and teaching assistant at the
M. Ivanović is a full professor at the Department of Department of Mathematics and Informatics, Faculty of
Mathematics and Informatics, Faculty of Science, Science, University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia (e-
University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia (e-mail: mail: [email protected]). Her research interests
[email protected]). She is author or co-author of 10 include learning technologies, application of intelligent
textbooks and of more than 200 research papers on multi- techniques, software engineering, programming languages
agent systems, e-learning and web-based learning, and tools. She is author or co-author of 15 research papers.
software engineering education, intelligent techniques This article is an extended version of a paper presented at the
International Conference ICL 2011, held in September 2011 in Piešťany,
(CBR, data and web mining), most of which are published Slovakia. Submitted, October 30th, 2011. Received 23 August 2011.
in international journals and international conferences. Published as resubmitted by the authors 22 November 2011.
She is also currently Editor-in-Chief of Computer Science
and Information Systems Journal.

30 http://www.i-jet.org