Abstract:

Microcontrollers are increasingly used in teaching programming to help learners learn the basics of programming more quickly. By connecting sensors, motors and various electronic components to microcontrollers, we can achieve spectacular results in teaching programming, as movement, flashing, etc. It engages students and arouses their interest in programming. Visual programming is a new trend within programming that allows us to develop applications. Nowadays, visual programming is becoming very popular. TinkerCad online application is very suitable for visual programming. Using the TinkerCad online application we can assemble our circuit, write the program code and then simulate the results. In fact, the application visualizes the steps taken. The application can be used well during a pandemic period, when students are being educated online. In TinkerCad, you can use a lot of predefined components for visualization on different platforms, such as Arduino, Raspberry PI, Microbit, etc.. In this paper, we present a teaching method in which programming instruction is visualized using the TinkerCad online application.

Keywords:

Teaching programming, visualization, TinkerCad, microcontrollers.