Dodona: Learn to code with a virtual co-teacher that supports active learning

Abstract

Dodona (dodona.ugent.be) is an intelligent tutoring system for computer programming. It provides real-time data and feedback to help students learn better and teachers teach better.Dodona is free to use and has more than 61 thousand registered users across many educational and research institutes, including 20 thousand new users in the last year. The source code of Dodona is available on GitHub under the permissive MIT open-source license.This paper presents Dodona and its design and look-and-feel. We highlight some of the features built into Dodona that make it possible to shorten feedback loops, and discuss an example of how these features can be used in practice. We also highlight some of the research opportunities that Dodona has opened up and present some future developments.

Keywords

• Computer-assisted instruction
• Interactive learning environments
• Education