Work In Progress: Developing Tablet PC Animations for Computer Science Courses

The Tablet PC can be a tool for developing Ink-based animated software supporting the teaching of computer science concepts. We report on a Tablet PC software development course, called CPSC 481, taught in fall 2005 in which each student developed a large Tablet PC application/animation intended to serve a pedagogical tool in some course. At the end of the semester, the students presented their work in a formal class mini-conference and submitted documentation: a User´s Manual and a Technical Reference Manual. We explain how CPSC 481 was taught, briefly describe each of the animations developed by the students, and explain how we will use some of the animations in exercises geared towards teaching concepts in a future data structures and algorithms class. Five students presented their work as poster presentations at WIPTE 2006. The students were enthusiastic in their evaluation as shown in the summary