The algorithm, a building block of computer science, is defined from an intuitive and pragmatic point of view, through a methodological lens of philosophy rather than that of formal computation. The treatment extracts properties of abstraction, control, structure, finiteness, effective mechanism, and imperativity, and intentional aspects of goal and preconditions. The focus on the algorithm as a robust conceptual object obviates issues of correctness and minimality. Neither the articulation of an algorithm nor the dynamic process constitute the algorithm itself. Analysis for implications in computer science and philosophy reveals unexpected results, new questions, and new perspectives on current questions, including the relationship between our informally construed algorithms and Turing machines. Exploration in terms of current computational and philosophical thinking invites further developments.

Lecturers in higher education often consider the incorporation of web technologies into their teaching practice. Partially structured and populated course site templates could aid them in getting started with creating and deploying web-based materials and activities to enrich the teaching and learning experience. Discussions among instructional technology support staff and lecturers reveal a paucity of robust specifications for possible course site features that could comprise a template. An attempted mapping from the teaching task as understood by the instructor to the envisaged course website properties proves elusive. We conclude that the idea of an initial state for a course site, embodied in a template, remains useful and should be developed not according to a formula but with careful attention to the context and existing pedagogical practice. Any course template provided for the use of lecturers should be enhanced with supporting instructions and examples of how it may be adapted for their particular purposes

The collection of electronic course templates suggested in this article results from collaborative investigation between instructional support staff and academic staff users of the virtual learning environment (VLE) at two institutions, one in the United Kingdom and the other in the United States. The particular VLE in use at both institutions was Sakai, although the experience described here can be applied to the design process and workflow using any VLE that allows the selection and some configuration of standard tools.We applied the lattice model of Hill, Fresen and Geng (2012) to design and build a set of six course site templates, which are used as the basis on which site owners can easily build new sites in the VLE. As the ultimate goal of template provision is to underpin pedagogy, academics are free to use a template or build a site from scratch, based on their own teaching context, and they may adapt any template according to the pedagogical purpose and nature of the course. The underlying assumptions are that academic staff retain full control over the content, tools and permissions in their new site. The templates are not mutually exclusive Á that is, aspects from any template may be incorporated, where applicable, into another one.We conclude that it is helpful for the VLE support team to take the lead in proposing a set of templates according to the predominant teaching and learning models in use at a particular institution, which may contribute to consistency across course sites and ultimately result in an improved student learning experience.

The Communications Web site, http://cacm.acm.org, features more than a dozen bloggers in the BLOG@CACM community. In each issue of Communications , we'll publish selected posts or excerpts. twitter Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/blogCACM http://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm Mark Guzdial considers how few U.S. high school students take computer science, while Robin K. Hill shares what she's learned in teaching first-year college computing students.

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