Reinvigorating CS1 by enabling creative Web 2.0 programming

计算机科学(31)智力价值：这个项目制作教育材料和必要的技术基础设施，以允许在CS1中使用最先进的Web 2.0技术，使新一代编程活动能够显著提高学生的参与度。这项研究开发了一个基于定制虚拟机的开源服务器环境，允许学生创建和部署丰富的互联网应用程序，而不会让他们面临通常与这些应用程序相关的复杂性。该环境的设计提供了必要的抽象，便于学生开发此类应用程序，同时保持对CS原则和概念的教学关注，而不是短暂的技术趋势。该项目开发了一个开放源码类库，允许学生将许多真实世界的数据源集成到他们的应用程序中。开发了一套完整的CS1课程作业，包括具有自动评分支持的编程练习和实验，以及适合长达一学期的课程的定制出版教科书。主题旨在使用与学生生活相关的现实世界问题，包括显示该学科的社会影响的问题，创建对课堂外的其他人有意义的解决方案，并在他们创建的解决方案中给予学生更具创造性的控制力和更大的灵活性。该项目通过在整个项目期间对教学基础设施进行并行的、基于结果的评估来进行评估。广泛的影响：直接的影响是，计算机科学一年级的学生能够创建与他们日常使用的现代Web应用程序风格几乎没有区别的应用程序。此外，将活动与外部有意义的问题联系起来，并允许学生更好地进行创造性控制，可以增加学习的参与度和个人投资。通过在开源许可下向其他人提供材料，并通过社区网站积极传播结果，其他人也能够类似地增加他们的第一个CS产品的吸引力。该项目实现的相关性的提高，具体是为了增加妇女在计算机科学领域的招聘和留住，正如先前的研究所表明的那样，她们比男子更有可能学习计算机科学，将其作为在非计算机科学领域进行有意义追求的一种使能技术。

Computer Science (31) Intellectual Merit: This project produces educational materials and the necessary technological infrastructure to allow the use of state-of-the-art Web 2.0 technology in CS1, enabling a new generation of programming activities that significantly increase student engagement. This research develops an open-source server environment based on custom virtual machines that allows students to create and deploy rich internet applications without exposing them to the complexity normally associated with these applications. The environment's design provides the necessary abstractions that facilitate students developing such applications while retaining instructional focus on CS principles and concepts, rather than transient technology trends. This project develops an open-source class library that allows students to integrate many real-world data sources into their applications.A complete set of CS1 course assignments is developed, including programming exercises and labs with automated grading support, and a custom-published textbook suitable for a semester-long course. Topics are geared towards using real-world problems that are relevant in a student's life, including problems that show the social impact of the discipline, creating solutions that are meaningful to others outside the classroom, and giving students more creative control and more flexibility in the solutions they create. The project is evaluated by performing a concurrent, outcome-based assessment of the teaching infrastructure across the duration of the project.Broader Impact: The immediate impact is that first-year computer science students are able to create applications whose style is indistinguishable from the modern web applications they are using daily. Further, connecting activities to externally meaningful problems and allowing students greater creative control works to increase engagement and personal investment in learning. By making materials available to others under an open source license, and by actively disseminating results via a community website, others are able to similarly increase the attractiveness of their first CS offerings. The growth in relevance the project enables is specifically intended to increase recruitment and retention of women to CS who, as prior research indicates, are more likely than men to study computer science as an enabling technology for meaningful pursuits in non computer science domains.