A Direct Manipulation Language for Explaining Algorithms
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Author(s)
Scott, Jeremy
Guo, Philip J.
Davis, Randall
Date Issued
July 2014
Journal
Proceedings of the 2014 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Citation
Scott, Jeremy, Philip J. Guo, and Randall Davis. "A Direct Manipulation Language for Explaining Algorithms." 2014 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC), July 28-August 1, 2014, Melbourne, Australia. p.45-48.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Instructors typically explain algorithms in computer science by tracing their behavior, often on blackboards, sometimes with algorithm visualizations. Using blackboards can be tedious because they do not facilitate manipulation of the drawing, while visualizations often operate at the wrong level of abstraction or must be laboriously hand-coded for each algorithm. In response, we present a direct manipulation (DM) language for explaining algorithms by manipulating visualized data structures. The language maps DM gestures onto primitive program behaviors that occur in commonly taught algorithms. We performed an initial evaluation of the DM language on teaching assistants of an undergraduate algorithms class, who found the language easier to use and more helpful for explaining algorithms than a standard drawing application (GIMP).
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/VLHCC.2014.6883020
https://doi.org/10.1109/VLHCC.2014.6883020
