Sortko

Learning Sorting Algorithms with Mobile Devices

Available on the Android Market
Sortko on a phone About Sortko InstructionsLanguage: English Hrvatski

Sorting, or putting series of elements in appropriate order, is an important computer science topic and presents an old and well defined computer science problem. Mastering sorting algorithms is especially important for future software engineers regardless of their specific domain they work in. The growing popularity of smartphone devices can be clearly observed in everyday student life. Although they are mostly used for fun and informal ways of learning (e.g. access to Wikipedia, YouTube etc.), scientific studies have shown the educational value of these devices.

Normally, students learn sorting by using a paper and pencil while simultaneously watching sorting algorithm program code. This tiring and ineffective procedure often results in different kinds of errors such as students learning their own version of a sorting algorithm which does not match the real one (the sequence of steps while sorting elements is not adequate). We believe that technology can restructure this troublesome and ineffective process of learning thereby improving students’ knowledge of sorting algorithms.

The smartphone mobile learning application Sortko provides students with an option of choosing a sort (e.g. bubble sort, shell sort, quick sort, insertion sort, etc.) and generates a random sequence of numbers to be sorted by applying a sequence of specific interaction gestures. During the sorting process, Sorko informs students about their success in performing “switches” (element exchanges) and provides them with messages facilitating further progress, making the experience of learning sorting algorithms more intuitive, discoverable and fun.


Sorko was developed by:

Ivica Boticki


Ante Barisic


Neven Drljevic


Nino Uzelac


Department of Applied Computing
University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing
Zagreb, Croatia


Sergio Martin


Electrical and Computer Engineering Department
UNED (Spanish University for Distance Education)
Madrid, Spain

Sortko source code is available at Google Code under the MIT licence. Please report any technical issues with Sortko using the issues tab at Google Code.