Teaching Programming with a Limited Infrastructure
Paulo Henrique Horta Alves Ferreira, Luís Nogueira, Nuno Pereira, Cláudio Maia, Marta Fernandes, Andre Andrade, Ana Raquel Faria, Carlos Gonçalves · 2021 World Engineering Education Forum/Global Engineering Deans Council (WEEF/GEDC) · 2021
Programming courses are needed for an increasing number of students in the Higher Education Institutions of today. Of all the programming languages covered in typical courses, the C and Assembly languages are among the most critical. As they are very low level languages, their knowledge helps the students to understand the inner workings of a computer. At the same time, their differences from other programming languages, demands from the learner a serious adjustment of the mental model. As the programming tools and environments are also different, there is the need of supporting the students in their learning, using a minimum of infrastructure, due to financial restrictions, and to support the maximum number of students, with the existing resources. The use of a Virtual Machine based on a Live Linux distribution, together with an enhanced set of software tests can provide students with an easy to install development platform, providing a good amount feedback, with very limited network usage. The methods described in this paper have been applied with good results, and can be used to support live or online classes.