Introducing programming to science students with interactive flowchart software and online automatic grading.

When students are learning to develop algorithms, they often spend more time dealing with issues of syntax than solving the problem. Additionally, the textual nature of most programming environments works against the learning style of the majority of students.[1,2] RAPTOR is a flowchart-based programming environment, designed specifically to help students visualize their algorithms and avoid syntactic baggage. RAPTOR programs are created visually and executed visually by tracing the execution through the flowchart. Required syntax is kept to a minimum. Students preferred using flowcharts to express their algorithms, and were more successful creating algorithms using RAPTOR than using a traditional language or writing flowcharts without RAPTOR. Additionally Thai online automatic grading was also used in the class.