J-Master: An Interactive Game-based Tool for Teaching and Learning Basic Java Programming

摘要

In teaching computer programming, the basic concepts must be given emphasis. It is a big challenge for the teachers to establish a good foundation for the students to understand the complex topics and to cope with the requirements of the programming course. Incorporating a game approach in teaching is an innovative strategy in teaching as it may boost the interest of the students in learning. In this paper, we introduce an educational game system called J-Master . It is an interactive game-based tool for teaching and learning basic Java programming. It is composed of two sub-systems: (1) the teacher console, which manages the student information, class records and game set-ups; and (2) the actual game to be played by the students. Students may first view their lessons before playing either of the two games: “Debug that Code” and “Write the Program”. The first intends to enhance students’ knowledge in basic syntax of a java program by correcting errors in the code. The second focuses on enriching the students’ logical thinking by letting them analyze the stated problem and answer it through writing the correct code. Using an evaluation instrument designed for J-Master , the latter is found to be acceptable as a learning and teaching tool. Both teacher and student respondents rated it “Excellent” in all four (4) criteria namely Functionality, Organization and Design, Instructional Design and Deliver and Game-based Learning.