Integration of ICT in concurrent and parallel programming lectures

Abstract

An effective teaching and learning in concurrent and parallel programming needs the presentation of short excerpts of code to students in a selected programming language during lectures. This is sometimes necessary to make understandable complicate syntactical constructs. Traditionally, these codes have been presented by the teacher to the students on a blackboard, with slides or by means any projection facilities, together with an oral description of their operation and significance. Teachers try to explain those syntactical constructs with more or less success and students do not usually test program code during lectures, nor can do any modifications to the programs, which are helpful in order to master difficult concepts of parallel programming and Concurrency. In the best possible scenario, students will carry out any tests on the real code of an example presented in lectures during practical lessons at the lab. Nevertheless, without a clear illustration of their actual behavior in a real computer program, any new concepts of concurrent constructs taught in lectures will remain fuzzy and prone to be forgotten. The presented approach consists of changing the traditional teaching and learning model of parallel programming into another where students will be equipped with multicore processors inside their laptops, which in addition to Virtual Campus services will serve to put into practice any programming code that illustrates a programming concept the minute it is presented during any lecture by the teacher to the class.