Evaluation of a hands-on approach to learning mobile and embedded programming

Teaching and learning programming with a traditional classroom/lab-based approach is challenging. Students often struggle to learn program due to lack of extensive hands-on practice and sufficient time to become familiar with programming concept. In this paper we report on an action research study of students' exploration and use of previously unexplored low-cost open-source mobile devices for learning programming. The study was conducted over a period of 14 weeks in University of West London, UK, with the postgraduate students studying Mobile Application Development (MAD) module which is a part of the MSc Network and Mobile Computing course. We introduced the Wikireader, a handheld reading device, and Nanonote, a lightweight pocket computer. In this study, we used mixed methods research methodology and data analysis was guided by the Framework for the Rational Analysis of Mobile Education (FRAME) model. The results of our evaluations indicate open-source devices have potential to enhance motivation to learn programming without being restricted to the limited practical sessions in the university lab and also facilitate offline reading.