Electronic books for programming education

Abstract

Programming is a suitable field to design electronic books with a laboratory component, where the programming task is exercised in the theoretical context provided by the book. The goal of the paper is to make a review of current electronic books for programming education and identify future lines of research. First, we review a number of software tools and electronic books for programming education in order to give a broad vision of technological opportunities in programming education. Later, a comparative analysis of such electronic books is made. Finally, based on this overview and analysis, we identify aspects that either are currently poorly supported or are a subject of active research, thus constituting potential areas for future improvement.