Digital CS1 Study Pack Based on Moodle and Python

Authors

Atanas Radenski, Chapman UniversityFollow

Files

Description

We believe that CS1 courses can be made more attractive to students:

• by teaching a highly interactive scripting language – Python
• by using an open source course management system - such as Moodle - to make all course resources available in a comprehensive digital study pack, and
• by offering detailed self-guided online labs

We have used Moodle [1] and Python [2] to develop a "Python First" digital study pack [3] which comprises a wealth of new, original learning modules: extensive e-texts, detailed self-guided labs, numerous sample programs, quizzes, and slides. Our digital study pack pedagogy is described in recent ITiCSE and SIGCSE papers [4, 5]. “Python First” digital packs instances have already been adopted by instructors at several universities. This demonstration reveals instructor and student perspectives to the "Python First" digital pack. In particular, we demonstrate how instructors can use standard Moodle functionality to customize and manage digital packs. We also demonstrate several Moodlesupported, Python-based self-guided labs.

ISBN

978-1-60558-078-4

Publication Date

2008

Publisher

ACM Press

City

New York, NY

Keywords

Python, Moodle, course management system, active learning

Disciplines

Computer Sciences | Curriculum and Instruction | Education | Higher Education | Instructional Media Design | Online and Distance Education | Programming Languages and Compilers

Comments

© ACM, 2008. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Proceedings of the 13th Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (2008). http://doi.acm.org/10.11451384271.1384368

Recommended Citation

Radenski, A. Digital CS1 Study Pack Based on Moodle and Python. Proceedings of the 13th Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, ITiCSE 08, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain, June 30-July 2, 2008, ACM Press, p. 325. doi: 10.1145/1384271.1384368

Peer Reviewed

1

Copyright

Association for Computing Machinery