Work in progress - advanced programming through problem-based learning

The way people learn out of university has much more in common with self-learning and problems-guided learning than with the classical way of teaching, with a teacher speaking in a class and all the students listening with a passive attitude. This paper proposes an exercise to motivate students to learn and use some advanced programming concepts such as the use of well-formed and valid XML documents; how to transform these documents into “human-readable” documents with XSLT style-sheets; communication protocols such as TCP/IP; application level protocols such as HTTP 1.1; and mash-up systems. The problem is intended to improve the mobility in universities with very spread and distributed campuses such as Universities for Distance Education, where this exercise is proposed. For that reason, this subject is especially motivating for these students, due to the fact they ‘suffer’ the consequences of study in a university where mobility plays a relevant role. Through this exercise students will guide their own learning, constructing the mental structures and understanding the programming concepts needed to solve the future programming problems they will find in their careers.