Interactive multimedia tools are can be extremely beneficial. dlg showed me the actual applets, and they are very grabbing and engaging. The major difference between those applets and things like BALSA is the interactivity level. BALSA was very helpful to look at, but I believe that one of the good points of software like the CS16 vizualizer is the ability to interact, calling the methods in real time when you want to, scrolling back through the stack trace to watch the progression, etc. Apparently th is level of interactivity is not available in BALSA -- for me, this is a definite "con."

However, a great example of algorithm vizualization that one can mess with, complete with animation and eye candy, can be found here. It looks like a ton of work went into this, but it r eally helped my understanding of Red/Black trees immensely. This is the type of thing that I would love to see in intro courses -- since students learn at their own pace, having a vizualization that they could play with outside of the constraints of clas s time, coupled with reading and lecture (perhaps labs?), would help a lot.

I think that you've made a good point here: I stongly agree that good interactive demonstrations can be beneficial. BALSA was interesting to watch, but in terms of what it tought, I think that it just provides a general overview instead of a complete understanding. Creating really good interactive programs which demonstrate algorithms or data structures through thorough animation and interactivity would brind a greater level of understanding faster.

I just thought that I'd mention that Lucas is a tool and provided alink to the same thing that I linked to for my first paper..

In fact, his reaction is essentially restating mine, so, uh either we were separated at birth or else he's a copier, and we DON'T like cheaters buddy!