PLL: a programming languages lab system

Traditional higher education has long been criticized for its high cost and low quality. With the advances of multimedia and networks, many educators are trying to apply these new techniques in education. They are looking for new models and environments for future education and are hoping that new results will also solve the problems mentioned above. Distance learning seems to be an appealing alternative. However, this kind of new approach does not yet seem to have emerged as a good solution. Despite this result, distance learning does provide a new way to solve learners' spatial and temporal problems. Since distance learning is itself a very rich research subject, issues of high cost and low quality are no longer of major concern for most research. In this paper, we are interested in the low-quality problem occurring in higher education, especially in programming teaching/learning. We discuss those factors that seriously degrade learning qualities. Then, we try to come up with a better solution. A programming language laboratory (PLL) system is designed and implemented. The salient features of this system are that: (1) the content of the learner's self-practice is well-designed and organized by the instructor. Thus, the learning curve is very smooth and the learning is very efficient. (2) The instructor is able to involve himself in the learner's learning process in a non-passive way.