A visualization system for sliding windows protocols

This paper shows how algorithm visualization can be used to teach sliding windows protocols. In the described approach, the student creates and visually manipulates traffic between an abstract sender/receiver pair. This work contributes to algorithm visualization by describing a tool built specifically to teach sliding windows protocols. The sliding windows visualization system can be seen at http://www.burgoyne.com/∼henryd/master_project. The interaction levels available in the software are described. Finally, we make the claim that sliding windows protocols lend themselves especially to visualization and that algorithm visualization is an important "missing link" in the teaching of sliding windows protocols.