The Object Shop – Using CD-ROM Multimedia To Introduce Object Concepts

This paper describes key features of a new multimedia CD-ROM pack produced by television makers in collaboration with computer science educators – by the BBC for the Open University Computing Department. The pack, The Object Shop, forms an early component of an undergraduate course which introduces object-oriented computing and software development to students new to computing. Building on the results of empirical evaluation, The Object Shop has been designed to help students with no programming experience to understand core object programming concepts. Throughout the CD-ROM, video, animated graphics and an underlying object-oriented simulation of a virtual shopping environment provide an accessible introduction to the central ideas of object-oriented programming. The key power of the multimedia approach is that the student-user is able to gain a sound operational understanding of concepts before learning the details of programming code or syntax. Users can continually monitor their progress through a series of task-based, assessed exercises