Experimental learning in Scripting Languages laboratory

Abstract

Time is a precious resource and it is always not enough to do the needful things. This necessity made the IT (Information technology) professionals to develop the Scripting Languages (SLs) to do their work in short time. As technology changes, computer processing speed is increased and supports variety of applications. This makes SLs more significant in development of future applications. SLs are mainly used for gluing applications and type less approach has made them as higher level programming languages. In this paper authors wish to convey their experience in designing curriculum and conducting the SLs laboratory course. A novel classification is presented to classify a large set of SLs, based on the utility of SLs. Basic scripts, Text processing Scripts, Glue languages, GUI scripting and Application specific languages categories are part of this nomenclature. In Outcome Based Education (OBE), assessment is one of the main parameters to check the learnability of the students. So OBE curriculum design inspire the authors to include assessment strategy step in the curriculum design. The Python scripting language is introduced for the first time in SLs laboratory by the authors to improve the learnability. They have also proposed pedagogical activities like multiple assignments, test plan writing, course project and multimedia book reading. The analysis of activities shows that 83% of students have passed with good grades and no failures in the course.