Collaborative tools in learning a programming language

It is generally acknowledged that students can benefit from the use of a collaborative learning environment typically resulting in higher achievement and greater productivity. However, there has not been sufficient progress in personalizing e-learning systems, especially in the case of collaborative systems. In this paper we describe a novel e-learning system for the teaching of programming languages through the use of collaborative tools. The collaborative tools support student interaction and group formation based on each student model. In conjunction with collaboration our system offers error diagnosis and user modeling based on individual models. Our research has been applied on an e-learning system for the Python programming language.