Abstract:

For a long time software development courses in computing, computer science, software engineering, and information technology programs at the university level were delivered within the controlled environment of computer classrooms, with the physically present instructor, holding lectures and directly and interactively helping students with in-class assignments and exercises in real time. However, in many situations, the instructor and students could not be present at the same location at the same time, which introduces spatial and temporal challenges in providing education. In the modern era of technology-supported education and e-learning, many of these challenges were successfully addressed, which resulted in a massive increase in contemporary online educational programs offered by many universities as well as numerous e-learning services supporting online courses, delivered remotely and often asynchronously.

Our research primarily focuses on the remote synchronous delivery of various software development courses, mainly related to programming and databases, where instructors and students are geographically dislocated and traditional in-person course delivery cannot be provided. In such cases, various alternative methods, services, and tools must be used to adequately substitute the physical absence of an instructor. For many years our institution is providing remote delivery of many software development courses as well as some elective courses within our Information Technology – Web and Mobile Computing undergraduate program. The instructor and students are present at the same time in the specially equipped distance teaching computer classrooms at two international campuses of our university, located in two cities in Croatia. Most commonly, such courses are delivered synchronously, with the instructor being present and teaching at one campus while students are residing at the other. Moreover, some of our courses were simultaneously delivered for two student sections at both locations in hybrid remote-and-local joint classes, and, in some cases, it was remotely delivered to both sections from the third location where the instructor was residing. Furthermore, we are also discussing the specific requirements of our senior capstone project courses involving students from global campuses in Croatia, UAE, and USA and delivered in parallel on several locations.

Delivering technology-rich software development courses includes many in-class activities, but also many out-of-class assignments, thus presenting an additional set of challenges that need to be addressed by various remote techniques. Additionally, such courses often involve students in various group activities, such as working on team projects. In all these cases, remote delivery was supported by our technology-enhanced remote learning environment, and many internal and external services and tools were used to provide high-quality education when in-person instructions were not possible. Regardless of the distance, we discovered an effective way to teach those courses and examine student knowledge and skills, but also to efficiently interactively communicate with students. In this paper, we are summarizing the details of our approach in remote delivery of software development courses with the emphasis on services and tools, and discussing our adaptations and usage scenarios, and summarizing our experiences related to the synchronous delivery of such courses.

Keywords:

Distance Delivery, Remote Delivery, Remote Teaching, Technology-Enhanced Learning, Educational Tools, Educational Services, Software Development, Web and Mobile.