Year: 2007
Type: article
Abstract: At many technical community colleges, students are seeking to master new skills, such as a familiarity with Web design and scripting, in an effort to obtain employment upon graduation. Yet unlike their counterparts in traditional four-year college programs, these students move through the curriculum at a rapid pace and are rarely provided with an adequate means to practice the hands-on aspects of their trade in a structured classroom environment. However, it is precisely this emphasis on practice that can enable beginners to gain more expertise. While teaching HyperText Markup Language (HTML) and multimedia courses at Technical Career Institutes in New York City, I observed how quickly students moved through the program, and I began to think about how I could provide supplementary learning tools in addition to face-to-face instruction. In doing so, I wanted to provide students with the opportunity to practice HTML scripting at their own pace and subsequently gain a better understanding of the structure and logic of this code for their future work. After a few semesters of experimentation, I developed an interactive online coding environment, called the Virtual Lab, that enabled learners to write and generate their own code and receive instant feedback in order to improve their coding skills. HTML was selected as the topic of choice primarily because it was considered to be the introductory boot camp course for each first-year class. Overall, the Virtual Lab was intended to become an online
Author: Heejung An
Institution: Nova Southeastern University
Language: English
Subfield: Computer Science Applications
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
Funder: Nova Southeastern University
OpenAlex ID: W297034919