The design of a programming environment to support greater social awareness and participation in early computing courses

Abstract

Given the growing and widespread use of online networking tools, coupled with learning theory's emphasis on learning through participation in a community, we believe there is good reason to pursue the development of educational programming environments that support increased interaction among learners. To that end, we have been exploring the design of a social programming environment to support students as they work on individual programming assignments, which are common in early computing courses. We present the design of OSBIDE, an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) plug-in that supports many common features of networking environments, including an activity feed and a recommender system that identifies learners who have encountered similar programming issues. We describe the iterative refinement of OSBIDE through its multi-semester deployment in CS 1 and CS 2 courses. Preliminary results indicate that students are generally enthusiastic about the environment's ability to make programming more social. OSBIDE lays a strong foundation for future research into the relationships between learners' programming and activities, and their learning outcomes. It also has the potential to provide instructors with powerful resources for identifying and assisting struggling students.