Using On-Line Tutorials in Introductory IT Courses

Abstract

Many universities offer introductory IT courses covering an introduction to programming and the use of applications such as spreadsheets, presentation tools, word processing and databases. Teaching such introductory IT courses is, for many Computer Science lecturers, an extremely difficult task. The pedagogical challenges include institutional setup, reduced teaching resources, the perceived ease of IT, a growing number of students, a reduced student effort and a growing motivational gap. Although applications have become easier to use, they have also become more advanced with a growing list of advanced features. Similarly, programming technology has improved with new programming languages such as Java, but the fundamental concept of programming is still difficult to grasp for many students. This chapter reports on two pedagogical experiments using on-line tutorials in combination with lectures and hands-on exercises. Although it is still the early days, the results seem to suggest that the approach could contribute to establishing a best -practice for courses of this nature. The approach seems especially suited for motivating and activating the growing number of students whose will to learn is low, the so-called “minimalist students”.