=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-3402/short02
|storemode=property
|title=Application platforms used for teaching of ICT subjects
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3402/short02.pdf
|volume=Vol-3402
|authors=Malvina Halilaj,Erisa Bekteshi
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/rtacsit/HalilajB23
}}
==Application platforms used for teaching of ICT subjects==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3402/short02.pdf
Application platforms used for teaching of ICT subjects
Malvina Halilaj1, Erisa Bekteshi11
1
University of Tirana, Department of Informatics, Boulevard “Zogu I”, Tirana, 1001, Albania
Abstract
During the last decade, educational institutions have made many steps forward, not only in the
teaching of technology, but also using it, mainly in the development of new information systems,
which are increasingly required in all sectors of life, including natural sciences.
Nowadays ICT is becoming key elements on teaching of the new generation.
In the study are presented different platforms that can be used for teaching purposes in pre-university
cycles. Platforms are discussed for their accessibility, how they work, how user-friendly are, the
benefits of using them, and comparing them.
Keywords
ICT, Platform, teaching, technology, educational institution.
life, today’s teacher education institutions try to
restructure their education programs and classroom
facilities, in order to minimize the teaching and
1. Introduction learning technology gap between today and the
future. Students and teachers must have sufficient
ICT stands for “Information and communication access to digital technologies, platforms and the
technology”. It refers to technologies that provide Internet in their classrooms, schools, and teacher
access to information through telecommunication.
education institutions. Teachers must have the
It is similar to Information Technology (IT) but
knowledge and skills to use the new digital
focuses primarily on communication technologies. platforms and resources to help all students achieve
ICT can be used in in teacher training programmes
high academic standards. For teacher education
nowadays and can help teacher to improve quality programmes, this daunting task requires the
of teaching. Teachers are the most important part of acquisition of new resources, expertise, and careful
the educational system in our society. The system planning to insert them in teaching. [1]
of teacher preparation in our country has changed Recently many digital platforms are a must in
over the time with the main purpose to consolidate relationship between teacher and student and both
their preparation, giving them skills to prepare need to collaborate to use effectively these
creative students. Teachers can play a friendly role platforms. Doing this, it is necessary to understand
with the learner. the needs and help them to find the best way and
The rapid development in technology has made platform for a better education process. One of the
creatively changes in the way we live, as well as the most commonly cited reasons for using ICTs in the
demands of the society. Recognizing the impact of classroom has been to better prepare the current
new technologies on the workplace and everyday generation of students for a workplace where ICTs,
Proceedings of RTA-CSIT 2023, April 26–27, 2023 Tirana, Albania
EMAIL: malvina.halilaj@fshn.edu.al (A. 1); erisa.bekteshi@fshn.edu.al (A. 2);
ORCID: 0009-0001-1981-128X (A. 1); 0000-0002-0678-979X (A. 2);
©️ 2023 Copyright for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative
Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS.org)
1
particularly computers, the Internet and related The last criterion related to user friendliness,
technologies, are becoming more and more most of these digital’s platforms were for
ubiquitous.[2] professional users and difficult to adapt on the pre
– university cycle and only a part of them met this
criterion.
The criteria to consider a genuine platform were: 3. Selected Platforms
- Programming languages that the
Different types of digital platforms are available
platform can support (preferred online and everyone can create their own account
languages: C, C++, Java, C#, Python) and use them for different purposes depending on
- Where it resides (Cloud or On – their needs. The list of the most popular tools was:
Premise) GitHub Classroom, Codecademy, Codeaid,
Coderpad, Codility, Codeboard and Codesignal.
- The cost of the platform (Free or Fee)
During the study was perform testing with the
- User – friendliness (is it easy to use students and teachers for the selection of the
these platforms or does it need a platform. The platforms were valued from 1-5,
support from a professional). where the value 5 is for the most helpful platform
which is easy to use for the students and the
teachers and the value 1 is for the least helpful
platform.
2. How these platforms were
considered? Results of testing are presented in the figure 1.
There are a lot of platforms that were
considered. For research purposes we chosen two
of them that fits better the needs and fulfil criteria
we chosen to considered.
During the analysis phase, it was searched for all
digital platforms that offer an opportunity for
student-teacher cooperation. The platforms that
will be studied before they were offered to the
teachers and students must be one that are
accessible from anyone who can access internet in
desktop computers, laptops and tablets. During
study of the platforms the attention was
concentrated mainly in the platforms that are free,
this because using free platform for our teachers
and students is more comfortable.
For each of these platforms an analysis was Figure 1: Results of testing for best platform using
made based on the above established criteria, if in teaching.
they met the conditions to be considered as a
possible platform to be used in the educational From figure 1, the platforms that received the
institutions. highest rating were: GitHub Classroom and
For the programming language criterion, a test Codeboard and the platform that receive lowest
was performed to identify which platform had the rating were: Codesignal and Codeaid.
most supportive, diversity and trending
programming languages.
For the second criterion, where it resides, all the
A. GitHub Classroom
platforms were hosted in cloud and fill the
GitHub classroom is one the first platforms that
requirement.
was selected from testing as the best platform to
Many of the platforms have a gap on the third
meet the established criteria. GitHub Classroom
criterion that was cost, almost all of them cannot be
automates repository creation and access control,
handled by the educational institutions due to the
making it easy to distribute starter code and collect
high prices.
assignments on GitHub. Track and manage files are used during a submission to grade a
assignments in teacher’s dashboard, grade work program.
automatically, and help students when they get Codeboard sandboxes all compilations and
stuck— all while using GitHub, save time by using executions of projects. A number of limits are put
automated testing to grade assignments. Tests run in place to prevent the overuse of Codeboard
with every push, letting students see results resources.[4]
immediately and make changes as necessary. Catch
when students get stuck and help them rewind with
version control. In group assignments, see each C. Codecademy
student's individual contribution in GitHub.
Codecademy was the third platform selected.
GitHub Classroom is free to use. To authorize Codecademy is an online learning platform that
GitHub Classroom to access your personal account teaches coding skills in an accessible, flexible, and
on GitHub you just need to create an account and engaging way. Codecademy offers growing
sign in into the platform. This platform is easy to catalogue of courses, skill paths and career paths so
use for beginners. students and teachers can dive into the latest
technology skills and prepare for the future.
Repositories can be private or public whatever The interactive learning environment that
teacher need to configure, but it must have template codecademy allows students to learn, student will
repository set. After the repository creation teacher code and receive feedback in real-time, at their own
can set up the team members. Around 1.13 million place. In addition to the coding exercises, students
students belong to GitHub Education programs.[3] will be exposed to articles, videos, quizzes and
projects to round out their learning experience.
B. Codeboard Codecademy offer free courses while the
student explores skill paths and build code
Codeboard is the second platform that was foundations.
selected. Codeboard is a web-based IDE to teach Code Academy offers projects, quizzes, and
programming in the classroom. Easily create and other features that can help to make the learning
share exercises with students. It analyses and process immersive and addictive to keep students
inspect students' submissions with a single click. In coming back for more. Lots of the training is laid
order to create a new project, Codeboard needs an out in sections titled by career path, so students can
account. This platform supports different literally pick a job goal and then follow the courses
programming languages and different types of to build to that.
projects. All compilers, programs, and tools are Code Academy allows to sign up and get started
executed on a 64-bit Ubuntu Linux system. Each right away and can even try a sample on the
teacher and student can select the programming homepage that shows code on the left and output on
language of the project from a list of languages the right for an instant taster.
supported by the platform. If the student does not know where to start, there
Codeboard is a free platform that can be used by is a quiz that can be taken to help find the right
anyone that have a valid account, a public project course or career to suit their interests and abilities.
can be accessed by anyone visiting the URL of the Get into the lesson and the screen breaks down
project. A private project can only be accessed by into code on the left and output on the right so you
users with a Codeboard account who are either can text what you write as you go, immediately.
listed under "Project owners" or "Project users". This is both rewarding and useful for guidance to
This platform is very easy to access since is check if you're doing it correctly as you
hosted in cloud and user will need just an internet progress.[5]
connection to start working on it. Each Codeboard
project comes with a special configuration file D. CoderPad
named "codeboard.json". This file defines for each
programming language how the project gets CoderPad was the fourth platform selected.
compiled and/or executed. CoderPad is a technical interview platform ideally
Furthermore, this file may contain information used by development teams to enable a quick,
about which files of a project are source code files, accurate read on a candidate's skills through the
which files are used to test a program, and which hiring process. CoderPad works like an IDE to help
candidates share their skills and ensure the and efficient. Students are evaluated based on
interviewer understands how the candidate works. technical skills.
The platform supports collaborative coding
This platform has a pricing list for each licence.
sessions and take-home assignments.
Your code will be graded automatically depending
CoderPad's platform works like an online IDE
on its efficiency with all possible inputs. When
where both interviewers and candidates can code
reviewed, your code will be assessed based on how
live - together. This interactive coding platform
optimal it is, and on your understanding of the
allows to write, execute, and debug code - all in a
solution. Codility creates and maintains a curated
performant, browser-based environment. CoderPad
library of programming tasks. Codility
also offers asynchronous take-home projects via
automatically assesses the resulting code to filter
our best-in-class IDEAs the size of the internet
the student with the best coding skills.
grows; it becomes difficult to retrieve the entire or
a major portion of the web employing a single
method. G. CodeSignal
CodeSignal initially called CodeFights, was the
E. Codeaid seventh platform selected. CodeSignal is a
technical assessment platform operated by
Codeaid was the fifth platform selected.
American company BrainFights, Inc.
Codeaid is designed to simulate realistic coding
challenges that allow you to assess a student’s Users select from a bank of coding tasks, create
ability to think critically and solve problems. custom coding questions, or use a skills assessment
Platform mission is simple, to offer a robust framework like the General Coding Assessment
testing platform that gives a true, in-depth view of (GCA). CodeSignal is a cloud-based software as a
your candidates’ capabilities – without an service (SaaS) product that integrates with
exorbitant price tag. Codeaid tool is available to applicant tracking system. Based on the licences
everyone and that’s why it is completely free. CodeSignal has different prices.
Codeaid’s Git-based system replicates the same It can support many programming languages.
workflow that developers and engineers would use On CodeSignal, programmers compete against one
in real-life projects, simulating an environment that another by writing code that solve a set of
is as close to an actual work environment as problems. They can also challenge bots that are
possible. By using a Git-based system, Codeaid can programmed to code like engineers.[6]
also measure the developer’s Git knowledge and
understanding – which is a mandatory skill itself
for most development roles. 4. Research pathways and results
For sure this is a great platform that can support
and offer many features, but is more as a Finding the most convenient platform for
recruitment tool that can be used for genuine teachers and students was done testing teachers and
developers. students. The purposes of testing were:
That’s why Codaid was marked as a platform - To know the methodology of how
that doesn’t fit the criteria for the educational chosen platforms work
institution that this paper is considering. - To know if they will give the wanted
results for teachers and students.
F. Codility The result of testing for the best platform that
can be used by teachers and students in ICT
Codility was the sixth platform selected. subjects are shown in figure 1. From figure 1 we
Codility is an online coding platform that is used decided that the most valuated platform was
for online assessment. It is an automated coding Codeboard.
test, that is later reviewed by professionals. Codility According to Maruni, 2014, Codeboard, is a
is a comprehensive suite of products that will help fully functional online programming platform for
test programming skills, and keep them engaged introductory courses has been developed which
with robust coding tests, interactive pair- includes instrumentation capable of capturing data
programming sessions, and gamified coding that addresses questions on student performance
events. This platform support 90 programming and behavior.
languages. Codility makes testing developers fast
The platforms which according to the analysis met
Table 1. the criteria are: Github Classroom and Codeboard
Advantages and limitations of the platforms. The tests consisted of creating profile on these two
platforms and using their functionalities to fulfil the
desired requirements mentioned above.
Platforms Advantages Limitations
The platform is Auto grading i. CodeBoard
user – friendly, needs some extra
free, cloud configuration in It starts with a new account creation on the web
Github
based order to page of the platform. After the creation of the
Classroom
implement it, account a new project needs to be created by the
support only Java
teacher specifying the programming language
and C.
desired and the exercise that is necessary develop
Supporting Needs advance
different knowledge to use by the students. The teacher can choose of the
languages, free, it as a project is public or private. If the project is public
Codeaid suitable for professional the link should be shared to the student and they can
recruiters to developer open the IDE, compile, run, and submit their own
choose the best solution.
candidates.
The platform is The platform For each project the teacher can apply a deadline
user – friendly, offers a limited for submissions, can specify the access control list,
support number of users can clone the existing project, after a specific
Codecademy
different for free. You have period teacher can trigger the deletion of the
languages, cloud to pay a fee for project.
based. extra users.
Support Needs advance Meanwhile the project is shared with the
different knowledge to use students, teacher can monitor all the submission for
languages, user it as a each student and the results of their solution.
CoderPad
– friendly, cloud professional
based. developer and
has a fee.
Support Auto grading
ii. Github Classroom
different needs to make an It starts with a new account creation on the web
languages, is extra step for the
user – friendly, teacher.
page of the platform. After the creation of the
Codeboard account a new organization needs to be created by
cloud based and
is free without the teacher. After the creation of the organization a
limitation of new classroom was created with the students added
users.
one by one or with bulk upload.
Support Needs advance
different knowledge to use Following the creation of the classroom a new
languages, is it as a
Codility assignment is required to be set up. The teacher can
user – friendly, professional
cloud based. developer and specify if the assignment will be an individual or a
has a fee. group one. Based on environment configuration
Support Needs advance teacher can specify test cases related to the new
different knowledge to use assignment. For each assignment the teacher can
languages, user it as a
CodeSignal apply a deadline for submissions.
– friendly, cloud professional
based. developer and The new assignment should be shared with the
has a fee.
students with a link. The student needs to accept the
assignment then they will start working on the
repository, creating pull request for they solution.
On the assignment profile the teacher can validate [6] Simons, John (2016). New Site Helps
every student submission. Outsiders Land Tech Jobs, November 2016.
5. Conclusions
Notes:
The benefits of using such digital platforms will For more information regarding to all the
effectively increase the teaching process. A user- platforms on this article follow URLs below.
oriented platform is essential to meet the demand
of today’s teachers who want to learn how to use https://classroom.github.com/
these platforms effectively for their ICT subjects. https://codeboard.io/
So, if use digital platforms in classrooms by the https://www.codecademy.com/
educational institutions our teaching learning
https://www.codility.com/
process will be too smooth and able to understand
https://coderpad.io/
for every type of students of our country. More
attention should be paid to specific needs in https://codesignal.com/
offering interactions with teacher-student https://codeaid.io/
relationship.
In this paper have been introduced different type
of digital platforms for educational purposes. In
conclusion, Codeboard according to the criteria
established for this paper is the most suitable
platform comparing with the other platforms
studied during this article. This platform will be
suggested to be included in our educational
institutions of Albania for teaching ICT programs.
6. References
[1] K. Ratheeswari (2018): Information
Communication Technology in Education.
Journal of Applied and Advanced Research,
May 2018,
[2] Victoria L. Tinio (2013): ICT in Education.
Published: Stephen Browne, Group Leader.
ICT for Development United Nations
Development Programme
[3] Yu-Cheng Tu, Valerio Terragni, Ewan
Tempero, Asma Shakil, Andrew Meads,
Nasser Giacaman, Allan Fowler, Kelly
Blincoe (2022): GitHub in the Classroom:
Lessons Learnt. In Australasian Computing
Education Conference
[4] Tapiwa W. Maruni (2014). Codeboard
Analytics for Characterizing Student
Programming Performance and Behavior.
[5] Jason H. Sharp (2019). Using Codecademy
interactive lessons as an instructional
supplement in a Python programming course.
Information Systems Education Journal
(ISEDJ), June 2019.