CAI of flowchart (CAIFlow) development using object-oriented methodology

Programming is a fundamental skill for Informatics students. Therefore, it is given throughout every level, starting from the first semester. Unfortunately, most of introductory programming lessons were focused on learning the syntax of programming and program building, so they lack of mapping the real world into the program design. Since it doesn´t focus on syntax but rather more representing a universal notation, flowchart is then chosen as the best alternative to overcome this problem. A wide range of flowchart application can be used with its own capabilities, but most of them are used for drawing only. This paper describes an alternative way of learning and drawing flowchart in one application, named CAIFlow (CAI of flowchart). The application has two main menus: Tutorial and Exercise. The first menu helps students on learning the theory and drawing flowchart in step by step as dictated by the instructions. The second menu lets the user to practice on drawing at three levels of difficulty: Simple, Medium, and Complex. The application is developed by using object-oriented methodology. It can run on multi platforms. Finally, the result shows that all features work well as it was designed, with some limitation such as it is still stand-alone and it has only static questions.