The curse of Monkey Island: holding the attention of students weaned on computer games

ABSTRACT

As the Oblingers' survey of the Net Generation makes clear [15], the cohort of students now entering higher education are always connected and immersed in computing and communication technology. Engaging these students in a computer science course requires more than "Hello, World!" and calculating sales tax. This paper reports an attempt to leverage students' widespread interest in computer games while keeping the focus of the course clearly on the fundamental concepts of computer science. Programming a text adventure game challenges and motivates students in a project-based CS1.5 course. After three years using the text adventure game assignment it is our pleasure to report that it has met almost all of its goals. Due to student interest we have relaxed the standard C++ goal. Students are learning to communicate and have far more opportunities for speaking about computer programs than they ever did before.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
      K.3.2 Computer and Information Science Education
          Subjects: Curriculum

Additional Classification:
  J. Computer Applications
  J.1 ADMINISTRATIVE DATA PROCESSING
      Subjects: Education

  K. Computing Milieux
  K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
      K.3.2 Computer and Information Science Education
          Subjects: Computer science education
  K.8 PERSONAL COMPUTING
      K.8.0 General
          Subjects: Games

General Terms:
Theory