Jeliot 3 Spring 2004 Andrés Moreno García Niko Myller Department of Computer Science University of Joensuu

Contents Jeliot 3 in context Reasons for Jeliot 3 Future of Jeliot 3

Jeliot 3’ in Context Software Visualization Algorithm Animation Program Animation stands for those applications that show the execution of a program by means of a multimedia display. They can be used in any phase of the development cycle of a program. Jeliot 3 is designed to aid students to learn programming Program Animation is one of the subsets of the more general term “Software Visualization”. Other important field under Software Visualization is Algorithm Visualization. With Program Animation we mean those applications that show the execution of a program by means of a multimedia display.. These tools can be used in every step of the development cycle ( from design to debugging). However, Jeliot 3 main goal is to help students understand the basics of object oriented programming through Program Visualization.

Jeliot 3 in Context Jeliot 3 goes one level beyond debuggers, aimed at expert programmers, and delivers visualization of the evaluation of expression. This visualization fits for novices: Complete Continous Self animated Completeness means that every feature of the program must be visualized, for example, a value such as a constant may not appear from nowhere.Continunity means that the animation must make the relations between actions in the program explicit.

Jeliot family and history 1993 Eliot’s development began at the University of Helsinki 1997 Jeliot I was released 2000 Jeliot 2000 was implemented at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel 2003 Jeliot 3 is released, developed by the University of Joensuu in Finland

Using Jeliot 3 Common language between teacher and student allows different lecture settings: As lecture material Follow-up assigments In interactive laboratory sessions Virtual courses The lecturer can use Jeliot 3 as a part of the lecture material. He can explain different concepts and then show their corresponding animations with Jeliot. This way, students can create the correct relationships among the animation, new concept and previously learned concepts, and apply them later with reduced possibility of misunderstanding [2]. Students may use Jeliot 3 by themselves after the lectures and do the assignments with it. Jeliot 3 can also be used as a tool in interactive laboratory sessions. The students can use Jeliot 3 to utilize their recently acquired knowledge by writing new programs and debugging them with Jeliot. The animations of their programs help the students understand more easily whether the programs behavior is correct or not. The teacher should be available to students, as students may require external help to understand their errors. Finally, it can support virtual courses. Jeliot 3 provides a tool that can aid in courses when external help is not available. After learning how to use Jeliot 3, students may continue its use remotely and visualize proposed example programs and modify them. Its visualization paradigm creates a reference model that can be used to explain problems and thus it eases the communication between student and teachers when difficulties come up.

Jeliot 3 goals The system must be easy to use. The visualizations produced by the system should be consistent with the visualization in all cases. The visualizations produced by the system should be complete and continuous. The system should support the visualization of as large a subset of programs written in Java language as possible. The system should be extensible internally and externally. Interface

Intermediate Language MCode Proposed intermediate code to visualize programs. Codes the evaluation of Java programs into a text file Almost fully Java compliant. One language, many interpretations (visualizations) suitable for different audiences. Comparison with different codes used in animation systems (DynaLab,JAWAA, ANIMAL…)

Future of Jeliot 3 Support for collaborative programming (Woven Stories) Backwards interpretation Self-evaluation Improved editor Learning Community around Jeliot Teachers Students Developers

Conclusions Jeliot 3 is being used in different places to teach basics programming. Easy to install and start using it. Modular desing that can add more functionality to it We are interested in suggestions from users. http://cs.joensuu.fi/jeliot/feedback.html