Animating algorithms over the web

We discuss a novel technique for animating algorithms over the web. Although there are several existing software environments for the animation of algorithms, some of which are web-enabled, ours is designed specifically to simplify the process of adapting an algorithm for animation and delivering the animation over the web with a simple web interface. This provides a first stage for more advanced development of web-based interactions to support animation. Our goal is to provide general web-based support to enable much more widespread use of animation in teaching. In particular we want to address the active participation of the observer in using algorithm animation technology. We describe the current implementation of the animation engine which is based on a simple co-processing method with CGI implementation on a web-server, along with plans to use this as a base to include emerging technologies (web-services with XML to markup examples and asynchronous interaction). We also illustrate the current web interface with some examples.