A Tool Help for Introductory Programming Courses

In a technological age of great and rapid changes, for today's students are not enough to know how to use all new technologies. To face the difficult job market in the area of information technology, students must have programming skills. Especially in higher education, a large percentage of students manifest several difficulties, lack of motivation, and abandonment in the introductory programming courses. It is important that students and teachers have good feedback on their activities and developments in the teaching and learning process. In this paper, we describe a tool to help the teaching and learning introductory programming - HTProgramming. We also present the results of its use in the classroom and the application of a predictive model of machine learning (neural network) of student failure based on the student's profile. The resulting tool allows teachers to effectively track the entire teaching and learning process and early identify students that are most likely to fail, allowing them to devote more time to those students and try new strategies to improve their programming skills.