ProgrammingLand is an online educational project to instruct introductory Computer Science students in initial programming classes. This page serves to introduce the project and direct interest to related links.

• The director of this project is Curt Hill, who is a faculty member in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Valley City State University.
• ProgrammingLand consists of a MOO server, a MOO database and various associated files that reside on the server. All of these are freely available, contact the project director for more information.
• An introductory document for students is available in PDF format here.
• Instructors need different documentation than students, a document discussing the important objects in PDF format is here. The MOOApplet.java source is here.
• The NSF funding ended on September 30, 2006. The final report in PDF format is here.
• The project is based upon a MOO, starting with a core supplied by high wired enCore which specializes in educational uses of MOO systems.
• ProgrammingLand is organized as a series of lessons. Each time a student completes a lesson they are given credit for having done so. Lessons may require various things such as reading the content of an exhibit, interacting with instructional objects, or completing other lessons. The lesson map shows each lesson and the shortest path to arrive there.
• A MOO must be accessed with client software. The usual way to enter ProgrammingLand is using a Java enabled web browser. Enter the Programming Land MOO.
• ProgrammingLand is affiliated with the World Wide Web Instructional Committee at North Dakota State University
• ProgrammingLand was the subject of a National Science Foundatation grant. An ITR proposal titled: Accelerating Computer Science Education. Number: EIA 0313154. Effective date was October 1, 2003 for a three year period. The grant was to cover the enhancement of the ProgrammingLand and test its use at other institutions.
• There are a number of papers on ProgrammingLand. See Curt's Scholarly Activities page for the most up to date list.
• The MOO is hosted on Euler. This is a Sun dual processor V240 running Solaris. This machine was purchased with NSF funds. It also serves as host for a databases for VCSU classes.

The last time I remembered to update this page: October 3, 2006.