Abstract-In recent years, many studies have been carried out on how to engage and support students in e-learning environments. Portable devices such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), Tablet PCs, mobile phones and other mobile equipment have been used as parts of electronic learning environments to facilitate learning and teaching for both lecturers and students. However, there is still a dearth of study investigating the effects of small screen interfaces on mobile-based learning environments. This study aims to address two objectives: (i) investigate lecturer and student difficulties encountered in teaching-learning process in traditional face-to-face classroom settings, and (ii) to explore lecturer and student perceptions about learning the subject through mobile devices. This paper presents the results of a qualitative study using structured interviews to investigate lecturer and student experiences and perceptions on teaching and learning Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm via mobile devices. The interview insights were then used as inputs to define user requirements for a mobile learning prototype. The findings show that the lecturers and students raised many issues about interactivity and the flexibility of effective learning applications on small screen devices, especially for a technical subject.Index Terms-Computer network, Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm, mobile devices, perception, small screen interface.

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Abstract-This paper describes an experimental study of university students learning Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm on mobile devices. The aim of this study is to investigate and compare the impacts of two different mobile screen user interfaces on student satisfaction upon learning this technical topic. A mobile learning prototype was developed for learning Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm on Apple iPhone 4s operated on the iPhone operating system (iOS) and Acer Inconia Tabs operated on an Android operating system. Thirty students who are either currently studying or had previously studied the course "Computer Networks" were recruited for the usability trial. At the end of each session, student satisfaction with respect to their satisfaction with the two mobile devices was measured using QUIS questionnaire. Although there is no significant difference in student satisfaction between the two different mobile screen interfaces, the subjective findings indicate that the Acer Inconia Tab gained higher scores than the Apple iPhone 4.Index Terms-Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm, mobile devices, mobile user interface, small screen interface, user satisfaction.

Notebooks are increasingly popular programming tools adopted by a diverse range of users, including professional and novice users, from various fields not necessarily skilled in software engineering, to experiment with programming and develop software. Notebooks are often used within interactive and exploratory programming settings; however, some of their main use cases are not naturally supported by their design. For example, users can only get insights into the program's state by executing program fragments and updating one's mental model. This paper discusses the possibility of defining widgets to improve notebooks by providing direct insights into the program state. The widgets are developed upon previous work in which a novel approach to incremental programming is suggested based on the notion of an exploring interpreter. As example, we present widgets for visualizing execution history and variable assignments, thereby reducing the cognitive load on users.

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