This is an interactive version of the "How to Think Like a Computer Scientist" (2nd ed) text. It has embedded simulations and programming assignments. It is released under the GNU Free Documentation License, rather than a Creative Commons License.
Type of Material:
Open (Access) Textbook
Recommended Uses:
The material is best used for in-class discussion, homework, individual / team learning, lectures or self-paced learning, etc.
Technical Requirements:
Javascript.
Identify Major Learning Goals:
The main learning objective / goal is to teach students the basic computational thinking approach, programming concepts and skills required for computer scientists to tackle / solve any real-life application in Python programming. This online material provides a very complete and systematically designed framework of useful computational thinking and programming concepts including the flow construct like for-loop, functions, and recursion, etc. Such fundamental programming concepts are well supported by a series of assignment and lab exercises embedded with interactive simulations.
Target Student Population:
It is targeted for any learner with some basic training in computing or computer systems at the college elementary (First Year) level.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:
The prerequisite knowledge may involve some basic understanding of computer- and programming-related concepts such as computer systems, C++; and Java as covered in any introductory course of computing at the college level.
Content Quality
Rating:
Strengths:
- Based on a particular programming language, Python, the site gives comprehensive and extensive learning materials for the user from the very basic ideas of programming .
- Videos are also incorporated in the site and they are useful for the users to follow the steps to start programming.
- The codelen is the key feature that allows users to test their code instantly, which is very beneficial to concept reinforcement.
- The whole set of online material is very carefully 'designed and well supported with a systematic framework of key computing/programming concepts, assignment and lab exercises written in Python and embedded with very interesting simulations.
Concerns:
This set of online material may possibly be further enhanced by adding some tutorial exercises / questions and also suggestions of various individual / group projects that students may work as based on the skills acquired thru' completing the Python assignment and lab exercises during the process.
As it is an interactive learner site, more cross referencing on the terms showing up again in the later sections can be linking to their first introduction.
Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool
Rating:
Strengths:
- The site are quite self-contained, without the need to get extra or external materials for understanding the steps. .
- It also contains the self-test quick quiz for reinforcing the learning points. These quiz can also be used as supplementary exercises in other similar course
- The embedded code runner is available in many cases after a specific topic, so the learner can test the understanding with the actual implementation instantly.
In summary, the material is very easy-to-easy with high potential to be used as an effective teaching tool.
Concerns:
To further enhance on its effectiveness as teaching tool, it would be great if learner / student accounts can be created for each individual / group of learners with which their learning progress and performance can be closely monitored by the concerned course instructor(s).
Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty
Rating:
Strengths:
- The learners are guided to read the material sequentially.
- The readers are expected to click the "<" or ">" to navigate the pages. However, the first users, these arrows are too small to be noticed, in particular to the first page of the each of chapter.
- The web site can be further enhanced by better responsiveness on user environment. Further, for better accessibility, it would be better to allow users to change the font size and provide better adaptability on mobile devices.
In summary, the material is definitely very easy-to-use with numerous examples well supported by assignment/lab exercises.
Concerns:
The online material can be further enhanced if more user-friendly help facility / instructions can be provided to guide any learner / student in using the supporting facilities and materials available on the website.
The system it refers for Python development platform is Window XP and should be more updated in terms of user environment.
Creative Commons:
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