International Journal on Recent and Innovation Trends in Computing and Communication ISSN: 2321-8169 Volume: 6 Issue: 5 17 - 26 ______________________________________________________________________________________ 17 IJRITCC | May 2018, Available @ http://www.ijritcc.org _______________________________________________________________________________________ Java Zoo a Tool for Interactive Java Instruction Cheryl D. Seals, Akolade Asipade, Yang Cao, Robertson Bassy Abstract: Games have been a form of entertainment for centuries and used to focus and motivated which is a great feature that can be utilize games as the basis for creating game-based educational applications. Games are part fun and part leisure, trying to educate using games is very interesting, but care must be taken in designing the game interfaces as they should be simple, attractive, usable, and at the same time portray the concept of learning. Many students have found Computer Science as a very challenging subject and some of the most challenging for some new CS1 students is their first programming language. We lose many students to other majors at the level of CS1 and can weed out potential great future computer scientists. In our computing department, Java is the first programming language and many students have problems with it because they do not understand the concepts of classes, objects, encapsulation, inheritance and polymorphism. It has been found that games motivate students and focuses them for long period of time. With long periods of time being required to have basic functional understanding of programming language, games can play an important role for intrinsic motivation. We propose a Java game called “JavaZOO” to demonstrate the concepts of programming by mapping the animal kingdom to the object-oriented design principles. __________________________________________________*****_________________________________________________ 1. Introduction One of the problems we are aiming to address is student retention. During the initial programming classes, computer science loses many students to other majors as learning their first programming language can be a very challenging task for many students. In many cases, CS1 (java) hasbeen a bottleneck to entering the major.Java is the first programming language and many students have problems with it because they do not understand the relation between the concepts of classes, objects, encapsulation, inheritance and polymorphism in Java. It has been found that games motivate students and focuses them for a long period. The proposed Java game called “JavaZOO” demonstrates the concepts of programming by mapping the animal kingdom to the object-oriented design principles. The actions and the flow of the game reinforce the concepts of the programming language. JavaZOO will cover the concepts of classes, objects, encapsulation, loops, inheritance and polymorphism 1.1 Why do we learn to program? The computer is one of the most powerful innovations in human history. With the use of computers, people are suddenly able to perform a staggering amount of computations at dazzling speeds. Information can be crunched, organized, and displayed in the blink of an eye. As technology continues to advance, the computer will become even more pervasive and small. Millions of devices that we see around us everyday use some or other form of computation. With the computer being a major force that drives our daily lives, We need more individuals to become masters of the technology and learn to program. When you program, you are a creator. Programming lets you work with your mind to free yourself to create things that are interesting or useful instead of being limited by the confines of what others have done before, and even when using those other things, you'll find that you can better appreciate and understand them [6]. 1.2 How to learn to program Over the years, researchers have devised different theories and ways that help people learn to program. In a study, students were interviewed about their understanding of what learning to program means. Many students talked about learning to program in terms of learning a special way to think, different from other subjects studied. Many of these students had problems in describing what this special way to think included. Since people are not born as programmers, it becomes extremely important to follow and pay a lot of attention to how this knowledge of interacting with computers is given to a person. Bransford, JD in his book “Human Cognition” explains, “Meaningful learning”, as a process in which the learner connects new material with the knowledge that already exists in the memory. The human cognitive system can be divided into short-term memory and long-term memory. When new technical information enters the human cognitive system from the outside, it should go through series of steps for meaningful learning to occur. The steps include 1. Reception – Learner should pay attention to the incoming information so that it reaches short-term memory. 2. Availability – Learner must possess appropriate prerequisite concepts in long-term memory to use in assimilating the new information.