Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge
Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge
A study of the difficulties of novice programmers
ITiCSE '05 Proceedings of the 10th annual SIGCSE conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education
Managing Learning in Virtual Settings: The Role of Context
Managing Learning in Virtual Settings: The Role of Context
Improving software practice through education: Challenges and future trends
FOSE '07 2007 Future of Software Engineering
Understanding student engagement in 3D virtual learning environments
International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning
Role-play virtual worlds for teaching object-oriented design: the ViRPlay development experience
Software—Practice & Experience
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This paper presents a novel approach to teaching and learning computer programming, using the three-dimensional virtual world Second Life® to develop a programming community of practice. Our students have developed their programming projects as part of this community as an alternative way of learning. The learning of programming is a difficult process, with many students experiencing difficulties which result in high levels of failure in introductory programming courses. In this paper, we describe and analyse how this approach spurred students' motivation and interest in learning programming. We also present observations on the difficulties felt by both students and teachers in the development of projects and activities, and discuss the approaches taken to overcome those difficulties.