A mobile app for teaching formal languages and automata

Abstract

Formal Languages and Automata (FLA) address mathematical models able to specify and recognize languages, their properties and characteristics. Although solid knowledge of FLA is extremely important for a B.Sc. degree in Computer Science and similar fields, the algorithms and techniques covered in the course are complex and difficult to assimilate. Therefore, this article presents FLApp, a mobile application—which we consider the new way to reach students—for teaching FLA. The application—developed for mobile phones and tablets running Android—provides students not only with answers to problems involving Regular, Context‐free, Context‐Sensitive, and Recursively Enumerable Languages, but also an Educational environment that describes and illustrates each step of the algorithms to support students in the learning process.