Online Python Tutor: Web-Based Program Visualization For Cs Education

Philip Guo, Stanford University

Stevenson Hall 1300
12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

The Online Python Tutor (www.onlinepythontutor.com) is a web application where the user can type Python scripts directly into the web browser, execute those scripts, and single-step forwards and backwards through execution in order to view the state of run-time data. Using this application, teachers and students can write small Python code snippets together and see what happens to the data structures when the code gets executed. These visualizations have been embedded within digital textbooks, used by professors as part of university computer science courses and educational research, and used by students to improve their mental models of programming. In this talk, I will cover the design philosophy of the Online Python Tutor, some implementation details that might be more broadly useful, and directions for future work.