USING COMPUTER ANIMATIONS IN THE CLASSROOM

George F. Riley

2010

Abstract

We present several animation tools that we have used in the classroom to help reinforce some fundamental concepts of computer architecture, computer programming, and computer networking. When presenting such concepts to undergraduate students, the concept of concurrency has been particularly difficult to explain and demonstrate. When two more things are happening at the same time, student often struggle to grasp what this actually means. Additionally, when teaching introductory programming classes, we believe it is important for students to understand how their program is converted into a larger number of simpler steps resulting in assembly language or machine code instructions. Attempts to show these concepts using traditional chalkboard methods or static viewgraphs have not worked well. To help present these concepts in a more understandable way, we have created several computer animations that we have shown to students in the classroom to illustrate visually these fundamental concepts. Further, our animation programs can create movie output files that students can download and view as often as desired.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

F. Riley G. (2010). USING COMPUTER ANIMATIONS IN THE CLASSROOM . In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 1: CSEDU, ISBN 978-989-674-023-8, pages 473-476. DOI: 10.5220/0002806404730476

in Bibtex Style

@conference{csedu10,
author={George F. Riley},
title={USING COMPUTER ANIMATIONS IN THE CLASSROOM},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 1: CSEDU,},
year={2010},
pages={473-476},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0002806404730476},
isbn={978-989-674-023-8},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 1: CSEDU,
TI - USING COMPUTER ANIMATIONS IN THE CLASSROOM
SN - 978-989-674-023-8
AU - F. Riley G.
PY - 2010
SP - 473
EP - 476
DO - 10.5220/0002806404730476