Uses of VPL

Rodríguez-del-Pino, J.C.; Rubio-Royo, E.; Hernández-Figueroa, Z.
5th International Technology, Education and Development Conference (INTED). ISBN: 978-84-614-7423-3
Marzo, 2011.
743/748

VPL stands for Virtual Programming Lab and refers to a Moodle’s module designed to manage computing programming assignments and propose assessments reports for them. VPL is an open and distributable tool, independent from the programming languages, and concerned with security. From learner's viewpoint, VPL can be used to make various types of tasks related with computer programming. The simplest task is viewing and executing of interactive and modifiable examples. The next type of task is fill-in-the-blank exercises, consisting on to provide the student a piece of code with blank spaces that must fill properly to resolve a given problem. This is a type of quiz commonly used in other disciplines and VPL provides support for it in the context of programming learning. It may be very useful for beginners in order to smooth their learning curve, in opposition to the more-usual-than-convenient alternative of develop whole pieces of code at first time. VPL may also be used for the classic kind of programming activity that provides the student a description of a problem and requests him a piece of code to solve it.