ABSTRACT
This chapter reports on a study of conversation between pairs of undergraduate college students as they were engaged in collaborative programming activities as part of a college course for non-computer science majors. The goal of the course was not for students to learn a specific programming language; rather, it was for students to develop a deeper conceptual understanding of the central ideas of computer science. Toward this end, a special computer-based learning environment was developed that allowed students to program by visually manipulating screen icons, rather than typing text that conformed to the syntax of a particular programming language. This learning environment is called JPie, which is short for Java Programmer’s Interactive Environment.
