Facilitating Team-Based Programming Learning with Web Audio

Abstract

In this paper, we present a course of audio programming using web audio technologies addressed to an interdisciplinary group of master students who are mostly beginners in programming. This course is held in two connected university campuses through a portal space and the students are expected to work in cross-campus teams. The workshop promotes both individual and group work and is based on ideas from science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM), team-based learning and project-based learning. We show the outcomes of this course, discuss the students’ feedback and reflect on the results. We found that it is important to provide individual vs. group work, to use the same code editor for consistent follow-up and to be able to share the screen to solve individual questions. Other aspects inherent to the master (intensity of the courses, coding in a research-oriented program) and to prior knowledge (web technologies) should be reconsidered. We conclude with a wider reflection on the challenges and potentials of using web audio as a programming environment for beginners in STEAM and distance-learning courses.