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Context-aware systems are systems that adapt their behavior dynamically when sensing changes in the surrounding environment in which they run. These changes may come from changing user preferences, external sensors (weather, localisation), or internal sensors (battery, memory) of the device. The paradigm of context-oriented programming, provides dedicated programming language abstractions to adapt the behaviour of a software system dynamically upon changing contexts. In context-oriented programming (COP), contexts and behavioural adaptations are first-class language entities. The behavioural adaptations get (de)activated in the code whenever their corresponding contexts become (de)activated. Many different COP languages exist. We also proposed our own specific programming framework, RubyCOP, to implement context-oriented systems in which we explicitly separate the notions of contexts and features. This clear separation promotes a better maintainability and reusability in developping such systems. Our RubyCOP programming framework is part of a more complete approach to feature-based context-oriented software development, which also consists of an architecture, a supporting development methodology and two visualisation tools. This presentation will focus only on the programming framework.

La Belgique francophone ne développe pas les compétences numériques dans l’enseignement primaire et secondaire. En conséquence, de nombreux jeunes ont une représentation incomplète de ce qu’est l’informatique, ce qui entraîne un manque d’intérêt de leur part pour ce domaine et les métiers associés. Pour pallier à ce problème, des ateliers ont été développés, permettant d’initier aux concepts-clé de l’informatique et de ses sous-domaines (programmation, robotique, réseaux informatiques, l’intelligence artificielle et la cybersécurité. Pendant deux ans, des données ont été collectées permettant de mesurer l’impact de ces ateliers sur les représentations de plus de 200 élèves de 12 à 15 ans, dans six écoles différentes. L’analyse des données met en évidence le rôle important joué tant par les thèmes abordés que par le discours de l’enseignant à leur sujet. En particulier, la comparaison des résultats obtenus lorsque les ateliers étaient animés par un expert ou par des enseignants souligne le problème du manque de formation des enseignants.

Smart Cities come as a solution to the urban challenges faced by the territory. They have grown in popularity in recent years and are now an integral part of the development strategy of many cities. However, this concept remains fuzzy to the larger public whose participation in the smart city is however crucial to its success. To address this issue, an activity has been created to educate children to this concept. The central part of this activity is the construction of a paper-based city model which serves as discussion support for the remaining of the activity. However, the evaluation of the activity revealed that this paper-based support lacks interactivity and does not offer a dynamic and clearly visible response to children's decisions, and therefore provides only limited input to the discussions. We propose to replace the paper city model with a tangible tabletop interface to overcome this problem. This article presents the design of the interface.

National audience; La Belgique francophone ne développe pas les compétences numériques dans l’enseignement primaire et secondaire. En conséquence, de nombreux jeunes ont une représentation incomplète de ce qu’est l’informatique, ce qui entraîne un manque d’intérêt de leur part pour ce domaine et les métiers associés. Pour pallier à ce problème, des ateliers ont été développés, permettant d’initier aux concepts-clé de l’informatique et de ses sous-domaines (programmation, robotique, réseaux informatiques, l’intelligence artificielle et la cybersécurité. Pendant deux ans, des données ont été collectées permettant de mesurer l’impact de ces ateliers sur les représentations de plus de 200 élèves de 12 à 15 ans, dans six écoles différentes. L’analyse des données met en évidence le rôle important joué tant par les thèmes abordés que par le discours de l’enseignant à leur sujet. En particulier, la comparaison des résultats obtenus lorsque les ateliers étaient animés par un expert ou par des enseignants souligne le problème du manque de formation des enseignants.

Context-oriented programming enables dynamic software evolution by supporting the creation of software systems that dynamically adapt their behaviour depending on the context of their surrounding environment. Conceiving such systems is complex due to their high dynamicity and the combinatorial explosion of possible contexts and corresponding features that could be active. We present the current status of our feature-based context-oriented programming approach, illustrate how it helps software developers to conceive highly-dynamic systems, and discuss some remaining challenges of our approach.

This work in progress focuses on oriented-object programming (OOP) education. The purpose of this contribution is to validate a methodology for building a concept inventory (CI) dedicated to OOP. The long-term study presented here concerns the variable programming concept. Teaching programming is a major issue due to the misconceptions of the students, notably in the OOP paradigm. Teachers need to be aware of the existence of these misconceptions, their variety and when they appear in order to quickly and efficiently correct them. A CI can measure students' understanding of a set of concepts at a precise time. To measure the evolution of student's understanding over a semester, the CI has to be administrated several times along a specific timeline. In the context of a 60-hour OOP course, a preliminary qualitative study was conducted during the 2018-2019 academic year. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 students following the OOP course. Each student was interviewed three times over a semester: Before the course, at mid-term over the semester, and after the course. Six students' perceptions of the variable programming concept were identified and used to build the OOP CI. During the 2019-2020 academic-year, the CI was administred to 107 students following the OOP course. Three administrations were organized according to a specific timeline, aiming both to confirm the results of the preliminary study and to quantify the occurrence of the six perceptions in a class of students. Based on the results obtained, the methodology appears to be effective in building a OOP CI.

Introductory programming courses are a challenge for any teacher and a barrier for undergraduate students. A tangible-augmented concept inventory (TACI) is developed according to a design-oriented methodology in close collaboration with future users (students, teachers). It aims to help teachers to become aware of the misconceptions their students have and to rectify them appropriately. Tests conducted with 8 experts and 9 students show promising results and lead to improvement of the TACI.

National audience; In recent years, public displays have been studied as a way to foster citizen participation. However, their surroundings and users are prone to high variability, which makes it tedious to accommodate different contexts with an optimal participation experience. In this paper, we propose adaptive public displays as a lead for solution in tackling this issue. From a review of the motivators and barriers affecting citizen's interaction with public displays we defined a process model destined to serve as a guide for designers of such systems.; Au cours des dernières années, les affichages publics ont été étudiés comme moyen d'encourager la participation citoyenne. Cependant, leur environnement et leurs utilisateurs sont sujets à une grande variabilité, ce qui rend fastidieuse l'adaptation à différents contextes en conservant une expérience de participation optimale. Dans cet article, nous proposons les affichages publics adaptatifs comme piste de solution à ce problème. A partir d'une revue des motivations et des barrières qui affectent l'interaction des citoyens avec les affichages publics, nous avons défini un modèle de processus destiné à servir de guide aux concepteurs de tels systèmes.

National audience; In recent years, public displays have been studied as a way to foster citizen participation. However, their surroundings and users are prone to high variability, which makes it tedious to accommodate different contexts with an optimal participation experience. In this paper, we propose adaptive public displays as a lead for solution in tackling this issue. From a review of the motivators and barriers affecting citizen's interaction with public displays we defined a process model destined to serve as a guide for designers of such systems.; Au cours des dernières années, les affichages publics ont été étudiés comme moyen d'encourager la participation citoyenne. Cependant, leur environnement et leurs utilisateurs sont sujets à une grande variabilité, ce qui rend fastidieuse l'adaptation à différents contextes en conservant une expérience de participation optimale. Dans cet article, nous proposons les affichages publics adaptatifs comme piste de solution à ce problème. A partir d'une revue des motivations et des barrières qui affectent l'interaction des citoyens avec les affichages publics, nous avons défini un modèle de processus destiné à servir de guide aux concepteurs de tels systèmes.

This Research Full Paper presents a longitudinal study aimed at identifying profiles describing freshers’ understanding of the programming concepts. The variable was chosen as a first case study. 108 students enrolled in a university introductory programming course were submitted to a concept inventory at four different times according to a precise schedule. This sample presents an interesting diversity: 64 students with a major in computer science and 44, in business engineering; 19 are females. Among these students, seven profiles were identified. At first glance, it appears that these profiles could be related to the consistency of students in terms of used mental models to solve variable assignment problems.