• DocumentCode
    2677708
  • Title

    Pex4Fun: Teaching and Learning Computer Science via Social Gaming

  • Author

    Tillmann, Nikolai ; De Halleux, Jonathan ; Xie, Tao ; Bishop, Judith

  • Author_Institution
    Microsoft Res., Redmond, WA, USA
  • fYear
    2012
  • fDate
    17-19 April 2012
  • Firstpage
    90
  • Lastpage
    91
  • Abstract
    Pex4Fun (http://www.pexforfun.com/) is a web-based serious gaming environment for teaching computer science. Pex4Fun can be used to teach and learn computer programming at many levels, from high school all the way through graduate courses. With Pex4Fun, a student edits code in any browser -- with Intellisense -- and Pex4Fun executes it and analyzes it in the cloud. Pex4Fun connects teachers, curriculum authors, and students in a unique social experience, tracking and streaming progress updates in real time. In particular, Pex4Fun finds interesting and unexpected input values that help students understand what their code is actually doing. The real fun starts with Coding Duels where students write code to implement a teacher´s specification. Pex4Fun finds any discrepancies in behavior between the student´s code and the specification. This tutorial instructs materials to equip participants with skills and knowledge of using Pex4Fun in teaching and learning, such as solving puzzles, solving Coding Duels, exploring course materials in feature courses, creating and teaching a course, creating and publishing Coding Duels, and learning advanced topics behind Pex4Fun.
  • Keywords
    cloud computing; computer games; computer science education; programming; social networking (online); Coding Duels solving; Intellisense; Pex4Fun; Web-based serious gaming environment; computer science learning; computer science teaching; graduate courses; high school; puzzle solving; social gaming; Educational institutions; Encoding; Programming; Software engineering; Testing; Tutorials;
  • fLanguage
    English
  • Publisher
    ieee
  • Conference_Titel
    Software Engineering Education and Training (CSEE&T), 2012 IEEE 25th Conference on
  • Conference_Location
    Nanjing, Jiangsu
  • ISSN
    1093-0175
  • Print_ISBN
    978-1-4673-1592-0
  • Type

    conf

  • DOI
    10.1109/CSEET.2012.13
  • Filename
    6245014