Iconic Programmer

A Visualization Tool for Teaching Concepts without Context

Overview

A Brief History of Science Needs – food, clothing, shelter Ideas – customs, tools, artistic creation Improvements – rules, measurements,

engineering design Formalizations – mathematics, theory

Education

Fundamentals and Foundations First Math before engineering French grammar first Algebra before MCV (MathWorlds) Code before algorithms

Outline

Computer programmingTeaching programming – current practiceThe Iconic ProgrammerUsing the Iconic ProgrammerResearch Issues

What is Programming?

Computer programs you interact with…

Non-computer “programs” you do…

Concepts

Series of actions / instructionsAlgorithm

Actions Decisions Objects Inputs/Outputs

Implementation

public class Account{private Money balance;

public deposit (Money amount){

balance.add(amount);}

}

Pedagogy

What is at the start of a text/course? What is a computer How to input text into a file and compile Programming syntax

Details…stuff that changes

Issues

Programming (processes) are important

High anxiety / attrition

Students get lost on context

Concepts

Processes Actions and decisions States and entities

Algorithms Logical organization of ideas

The Iconic Programmer

Pure graphical programming interfaceMinimalistRealVisually intuitiveInteractive

Programming Concepts

Actions SequenceDecisions BranchingRepetitions Looping

Programming Context

Data manipulation Basic math

• Number games

• Telephone menus

Input and output

Actions

Declare Processes work on “objects”

Assign Random, mathematical, input

Output Text or data

Program 1

I have a number, try to guess it…

Actions Creation of my number Your attempts to guess

Decisions

Feedback and interaction

Need to allow multiple paths / actions

Program 2

You have three guesses to get my number…

Decisions Correct guess – yes/no

Actions/paths Guess again or stop

Repetition

Concept Guess, repeat

Repeat do the action/path over again Repetition is based on a decision

Program 3

Repeated guessing

Linear search

Program 4

A complete program

Binary search

Iconic Programming

Supplement to introductory high school or university programming courses

Three-week general science module Computers are pervasive Programming is a general skill

Research Issues

Kinesthetic thinking

Modes of interaction

Visualization models