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The BlueJ environment was developed as part of a university research project about teaching object-orientation to beginners. The system is being developed and maintained by a joint research group at Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia, and the University of Kent in Canterbury, UK. The project is supported by Sun Microsystems. The aim of BlueJ is to provide an easy-to-use teaching environment for the Java language that facilitates the teaching of Java to first year students. Special emphasis has been placed on visualisation and interaction techniques to create a highly interactive environment that encourages experimentation and exploration. BlueJ is based on the Blue system. Blue is an integrated teaching environment and language, developed at the University of Sydney and Monash University, Australia. BlueJ provides a Blue-like environment for the Java language.

Consider greenfoot as a combination between a framework for creating two-dimensional grid assignments in Java and an integrated development environment (class browser, editor, compiler, execution, etc.) suitable for novice programmers. While greenfoot supports the full Java language, it is especially useful for programming exercises that have a visual element. In greenfoot object visualisation and object interaction are the key elements. If you know BlueJ and a microworld framework (like Karel the Robot or the AP Marine Biology Case Study) consider greenfoot as the best from both: object interaction (BlueJ) and object visualisation (microworlds).

Visual Tracer allows the user to watch and explore the trace of an executing application. It shows information about the main events as they occur, as well as about the existing instances and their historical values. Visual Tracer has a nice GUI that allows the user to set the status and the speed of the application execution. Visual Tracer handles both single- and multithreading applications.

Designed for a diverse audience, this course examines some of the fundamental ideas behind the science of computing. This course, like the field of Computer Science in general, is more than just the study of how to use computers. At the highest level, this course focuses on studying algorithms which are step-by-step methods for accomplishing a complex task. Algorithms are useful in more places than you might imagine. Algorithms specify the work that must be done for large, complex tasks like sequencing the human genome and indexing and searching for web pages. But, algorithms can also describe how people can approach problems like finding a path out of a maze or solving a rubix cube. Understanding how to solve problems in a step-by-step fashion is useful for more than just computer scientists. In this course, we will investigate the types of problems we currently know how to solve with computation. We will compare different algorithms that solve the same problem and determine which are the most efficient. We will learn how modern computers perform computation by covering hardware and software topics on how data is stored and how instructions are executed. We will also survey the wide range of areas within computer science, including robotics, human-computer interaction, and artificial intelligence. To obtain hands-on experience with algorithms, we will be using a new programming environment called Scratch. Scratch enables beginners to create sophisticated programs by simply dragging and dropping predefined instruction blocks. Thus, we will acquire experience decomposing problems into well-defined steps without the fear of frustrating ``syntax'' errors. CS 202 can be used to satisfy the Quantitative Reasoning A (QR-A) and Natural Sciences requirements. CS 202 can also be used as part of a certificate in Computer Sciences.