Understanding the General Framework for Teaching Semantics and Syntaxes of Visual Languages to Computer Education Students Based on Notion of Abstract Visual Syntax Graphs

The need for teachers to understand basic properties of visual languages; as well as differentiate visual languages from other instructive counters like Visual Basic during classroom teaching of semantics specification of different visual languages prompted this study. We proposed a general framework which defined the abstract syntaxes and semantics of three selected notable visual languages with the aim of making comparisons of their syntaxes and semantics to address teacher's confusion with other instructive counter example for visual programming languages which are under Microsoft Visual Studio. Our findings suggest the following (1) the framework affords the teachers both logical and denotational approach to understand and improve in their pedagogy of visual semantics and their properties, as well as improve their formal understanding about other instructive counter example for visual programming languages; (2) use of a notion of abstract visual syntax graph to explain the semantics of Visual Languages for proper understanding makes this work unique and this is how our work contribute to literature. Implications of these conclusions for education practice were discussed.