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National award for pioneering software developer

Dr Michael Kölling, Senior Lecturer at the Computing Laboratory, University of Kent, has been awarded a National Teaching Fellowship by the Higher Education Academy.

Dr Kölling's £10,000 award is in recognition of his innovative work on the BlueJ and Greenfoot systems, both of which are used in the UK and abroad to enable students to learn computer programming via the Java programming language. He will receive his award at a ceremony in London on 24 September.

Professor Simon Thompson, Director and Head of the Computing Laboratory, said: 'I am delighted that Dr Kölling has received both this award and national recognition for his work in developing the BlueJ and Greenfoot systems. Both have had a tremendous effect on teaching and learning programming in universities and, increasingly, in schools. This award will only strengthen this.'

Since the 1990s, Dr Kölling has been working to address the shortage of computer scientists and programmers in the national employment market. Initially, this was through the development of BlueJ, a highly successful software system that fundamentally changes the way in which modern Java programming can be taught to beginners. Today, it is used in more than 850 institutions worldwide, including more than half of all English universities. Dr Kölling is also co-author of a text book on BlueJ, which is the best-selling Java text book in Europe and number two in the USA.

Building on this success, Dr Kölling has been working on the development of Greenfoot, an easy-to-use Java-based system designed to teach programming to secondary school students. With Greenfoot, students can create real interactive graphical computer applications, such as games and simulations, and so experience the challenge and satisfaction that arise from these activities.

Greenfoot is used at many schools and universities for programming teaching and, at present, there are more than 40 institutions actively using the system. The impact of Greenfoot on programming education was recognised last year, when the software won the Duke's Choice Award 2007, an industry award sponsored by Sun Microsystems.

It is anticipated that the success rate of Greenfoot will match that of BlueJ, with recent feedback from teachers and students about their experiences with Greenfoot demonstrating that it is already making a significant impact.

Contact: mediaoffice@kent.ac.uk

Story published at 9:45am 27 June 2008