Using Java to increase active learning in programming courses

Introductory courses in Programming often have many objectives, some explicit and some implicit. Increased pressure to cater for a wide range of abilities and backgrounds within the same class-group leads to a conflict between the need to lay solid foundations for the student who will eventually make a career as a software developer, and the need to provide a useful and rewarding learning experience which imparts some understanding of the principles of programming to the others. This paper proposes that giving students early access to a minimal graphical interface for input and output and tailoring examples towards colour and animation instead of account balances and inventories can improve the motivation of the masses without sacrificing the rigour needed by the few. Java is ideal for this purpose but care needs to be taken to keep complexity of both graphics and environment to a minimum.