Teaching students how to program can be a challenging task. Unfortunately, there are few tools that provide pedagogical support for teaching and learning programming. Working with our own first year computer science curriculum at UVic, GILD (Groupware enabled Integrated Learning and Development) seeks to rectify this lack by creating an integrated learning and development plug-in for Eclipse.

The GILD team is made up of members from UVic's Computer-Human Interaction Software Engineering Lab (CHISEL), Software Engineering Global interAction Laboratories (SEGAL), and VIEW research groups. Members of IBM's Centre for Advanced Studies complete the team. Our work builds on the existing Eclipse IDE and its associated plug-ins, as well as borrows concepts from web-based learning tools and collaborative desktop technologies to enhance learning in both co-located and distributed settings.