A class record and reviewing system designed to promote programming learning

Many students feel difficulties in programming learning and, consequently, the failure rates in introductory programming courses are frequently high. Some students do not have the necessary commitment, while others do not show a natural ability for programming, which means they need more time to master the necessary knowledge and develop appropriate problem solving skills. Often, class pace is very intensive and many students are simply not able to follow all contents and activities. In order to help students with their studies it would be helpful if they could review classes so that they could clear doubts or take additional notes. Students that miss class for some reason could also take advantage of such possibility. In this paper we present a new system that we developed to record and replay lessons. The system is able to record the voice of the teacher, but also the main visual points of a class: the computer in focus in the class, the blackboard and the classroom environment. This system gives students the opportunity to review any part of a particular class, clear doubts that may have remained, review examples or exercises that may contribute to their programming learning.