Design of a web-based visual simulator and its evaluation based on real computer education

Yoshiro  Imai; Keiichi  Kaneko; Masaki  Nakagawa

1st International ICST Conference on Simulation Tools and Techniques for Communications, Networks and Systems

Research Article

Design of a web-based visual simulator and its evaluation based on real computer education

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Cite: BibTeX Plain Text

@INPROCEEDINGS{10.4108/ICST.SIMUTOOLS2008.3167 ,
    author={Yoshiro  Imai and Keiichi  Kaneko and Masaki  Nakagawa},
    title={Design of a web-based visual simulator and its evaluation based on real computer education},
    proceedings={1st International ICST Conference on Simulation Tools and Techniques for Communications, Networks and Systems},
    publisher={ICST},
    proceedings_a={SIMUTOOLS},
    year={2011},
    month={12},
    keywords={Computer simulator Visualization Built-in e-mail handler},
    doi={10.4108/ICST.SIMUTOOLS2008.3167 }
}

Yoshiro Imai
Keiichi Kaneko
Masaki Nakagawa
Year: 2011
Design of a web-based visual simulator and its evaluation based on real computer education
SIMUTOOLS
ICST
DOI: 10.4108/ICST.SIMUTOOLS2008.3167

Yoshiro Imai¹^,*, Keiichi Kaneko²^,*, Masaki Nakagawa³^,*

1: Kagawa University, 2217-20 Hayashi-cho Takamatsu, Kagawa 761-0396 Japan +81-87-864-2244
2: Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Naka-cho 2-24-16, Koganei, Tokyo, 184-8588, Japan.
3: Kagawa University, 2217-20 Hayashi-cho Takamatsu, Kagawa 761-0396 Japan +81-423-88-7144

*Contact email: imai@eng.kagawa-u.ac.jp, k1kaneko@cc.tuat.ac.jp, nakagawa@cc.tuat.ac.jp

Abstract

A visual computer simulator has been designed to help learners to understand computer architecture and organization efficiently. It is used in a real education, such as classroom lecture of computer architecture and exercise of assembly programming. Our simulator is written in a pure Java language and works not only as an applet but also as a stand-alone application. Its graphical user interface (GUI) provides visual simulating function in the register-transfer level and assists beginners of computer science to comprehend how a computer works. The simulator also equips built-in e-mail handlers to facilitate communicating function and supports asynchronous information sharing between learners and instructors. We have applied our simulator into a real education and evaluated its simulating and communicating capabilities. This paper reports statistic evaluation of visualization and communication. It is confirmed that capabilities of visualization and communication of our simulator are statistically significant.

Keywords: Computer simulator Visualization Built-in e-mail handler

Published: 2011-12-28
Publisher: ICST

: http://dx.doi.org/10.4108/ICST.SIMUTOOLS2008.3167