Dynamic instructional models of computer organizations and programming languages

  • Authors:
  • Earl J. Schweppe

  • Affiliations:
  • -

  • Venue:
  • SIGCSE '73 Proceedings of the third SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
  • Year:
  • 1973

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Abstract

Although there has been much progress over the years, students learning computer organizations and programming languages are usually still working with the computer through several layers of confusion and delay. Highly responsive interactive computer systems have recently become available which make it possible to create dynamic instructional models of computer organizations and programming languages. With proper development of these systems, such models can economically be used to give the student a more vivid experience with the computing machine and a more vital means of learning to program. Models of computer organization can allow the student to “see” the inner workings of a computing machine as it executes an instruction or a program which has been entered mnemonically at the assembly language level. Models of higher level programming languages can provide the student with constant “help” by presenting alternatives, checking acceptability of inputs, supplying amplifications of correct inputs, displaying syntactic structures to be completed, and prompting him as necessary at any point. Such models should also help provide a more productive environment for accomplished programmers to develop and debug programs. Exploratory models of each of these types have been implemented on a small interactive computer system to demonstrate these techniques.