Syed Burhan

The subject matter in this course deals with the study of programming languages. The course provides the student with an overview of the programming features found in different programming languages, the programming paradigms supported by various languages, and the reasoning behind the inclusion or exclusion of certain features from a language. I had the opportunity to teach the course in both traditional and Virtual Classroom�® modes. The following represents the summary of my teaching experience in both methods. In this report I try to explain the differences in the approach I use to teach this subject in these two modes of delivery. While no one method, so far, has emerged as a better choice, there is still a lot to explore in distance learning before a decisive conclusion can be made. My challenge was to find the right combination of tools, technologies, and teaching approaches that will enable the distant learner to do as well as a traditional student sitting in a classroom. In particular, the course was centered around a conferencing system (Virtual Classroom�® on EIES) with many built-in features to support distance learning. To extent I can report on what has worked for me and what is likely to work in the future. Obviously, every time the course is taught new discoveries can be made and the overall teaching experience is enhanced.