How can I improve these online java programming puzzles I wrote for my (middle/high school) students?
- by Arcymag
I'm teaching some middle and high school students programming right now, and I found that some of them really liked online programming puzzles. So I created http://www.kapparate.com/coder/ , and right now there's 4 categories of puzzles.
All the puzzles are set up right now so that variables are pre-initialized, and the user plugs in some code in the middle.
For example, the problem might say these are pre-initialized:
int x = ????;
int y = ????;
int z;
and then the program might ask the student to write the final line of code: z = x + y;.
Now I know I could go a long way in improving the usability of this site (like having an area that lists the pre-defined variables), but I was wondering if this concept seems sound. I know some sites have kids fill in functions, but not all of my students know what functions are yet, and I'm trying to introduce online programming puzzles before that.