Herramienta didáctica basada en web de visualización de algoritmos secuenciales, paralelos y basados en árboles

Abstract

[en] According to a survey of computing educators, loops and arrays are two of the three programming topics of major difficulty for novice programming students [2]. In the early phases, the correct understanding of how the algorithms work is important for the development of the student. For this reason, sorting algorithms are presented as educational material. This is the main motivation for which I consider important tools that favor the understanding of these algorithms. In this project I intend to report the implementation process and the result obtained after creating a web-based didactic visualization tool for sequential and parallel algorithms and tree algorithms. To do this, i will carry out two phases: The first phase consists of making a review of the material related to the one I want to program, as well as the tools available for its creation. I will explore existing viewers if there are any and compare programming languages and libraries in order to decide which is the optimal method. The second phase will consist of the implementation of the code to create the tool, together with many algorithms to visualize and a template which any user can use to implement their own. The reason I decided to make my tool web-based is the ease of access it provides. Users positively value the possibility of running the tool easily and quickly from their personal computer [7]. Additionally, the no need to install applications natively is a remarkable feature. As the objective of this project is not only provide an algorithm visualization, but also a template for users who are interested in developing their own visualization, I will use an easy, crear, and generalized structure as possible without using specific frameworks that limit the programming to their language, causing that whoever develops with the documents that I will provide can do so from a didactic spirit using HTML, CSS, JavaScript and simple libraries of these languages. The tool will have different functionalities so that the user can interact with it and learn in its process. It will be web-based to achieve a familiar and friendly appearence with easy and intuitive navigability.