Tiny CAI tools—giving students ‘the works’

Abstract

In many CAI lessons in use today, there is a strong emphasis on user interaction and the provision of immediate feedback from the lesson. This paper describes, by means of an example, the use of a ‘tiny tool’—a small language designed specifically to provide a vehicle for user interaction with the exercises in a particular CAI lesson. Such a language can be implemented as a ‘natural’ user interface, if carefully designed; for some applications it is a more ‘natural’ interface than the ubiquitous ‘menu-driven’ and ‘hypertext’ interfaces. For student exercises, it can facilitate the use of the computer to solve more complex problems in the context of a CAI lesson, reducing frustration with the CAI environment—‘I have a computer but can't even use it to add!’ The language itself can also be a pedagogical aid, providing a concise way of annotating an explanation. Moreover, the language implementation is relatively straightforward, using modern language development tools. In particular, prototyping can be quite rapid, to gain experience with an implementation, and improvements can be readily incorporated.