TEWI Colloquium

Prof. Tullio Vardanega | University of Padua

Monday, July 21, 2025 at 02:00 p.m. @ B01.0.204 | Lakeside Park |  University of Klagenfurt

Abstract: This talk focuses on the teaching of programming from an angle arguably applicable to any level of training, the more fully, the more advanced the level. Said angle is inspired by two sources, seemingly different from each other, but featuring very clear points of contact:

(1) the understanding of how learning works; and

(2) the transposition of some powerful practices of Software Engineering into

the instructional design of programming education.

The spinal cord of this talk is the idea that learning requires “reconciling with errors

to be able to leverage from them”.

 

Bio: Tullio Vardanega holds an MSc from the University of Pisa, IT (1986), and a PhD from the Technical University of Delft, NL, 1998. After working as PI for an R&D firm at Pisa between 1987 and 1991, he moved to the European Space Agency in the Netherlands, where he stayed until the end of 2001. Since January 2002, he is at the University of Padua, IT. Owing to his fabric of industrial and academic contacts, he has run numerous collaborative projects on international and national research funding. In addition to being a long-time member of IEEE and ACM, he is the Italian delegate in technical expert groups of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22: WG9 (Ada) and WG23 (Programming Language Vulnerabilities). From February 2004 until February 2024, he was the chairperson of Ada-Europe. He now is the chair of the Ada User Society that oversees the continuation of Ada as international standard.