Collaborative Dynabooks: A research agenda on building systems to support learning through media Mark Guzdial Collaborative Software Lab (School of) Interactive and Intelligent Computing (Division) College of Computing Georgia Tech

Story Dynabooks (Alan Kay): Learning through and with multimedia Story 1: What Learning Science tells us about the Dynabooks and the power of collaboration Collaborative Dynabooks: Learning through collaboration and multimedia Story 2: Making real systems towards Collaborative Dynabooks Using the CoWeb in Architecture and CS Story 3: Applying Collaborative Dynabooks to solve hard learning problems Using Multimedia Collaboration to teach programming

Dynabook to Personal Computer The Personal Computer as we know it today was invented in pursuit of the Dynabook (And Collaborative Systems then were more flexible and faster than they are today!)

Alan Kay’s Dynabook (1972) Alan Kay (2004 Turing Awardee) sees the Computer as Man’s first metamedium A medium that can represent any other media: Animation, graphics, sound, photography, etc. Programming as yet another medium The Dynabook is a computer for creative metamedia exploration and reading Handheld, wireless network connection Writing (and typing), drawing and painting, sound recording, music composition and synthesis One goal: End-user programming.

Prototype Dynabook (Xerox PARC Learning Research Group)

Why? A Dynabook is for Learning The Dynabook offers a new way to learn new kinds of things…and perhaps old things in better ways Decentralized systems (Resnick, 1997) Knowledge representation (Papert, 1980) But need a system for creative expression In a time when “windows” were made of glass, and “mice” were undesirable rodents

Smalltalk-72 For the Dynabook, WIMP was invented: overlapping Windows Icons Menus mouse Pointer

What about collaboration? Collaboration was always part of the Dynabook vision. Not always emphasized, because just assumed. The first collaborative system preceded Smalltalk-72 And were faster and more flexible than today’s systems

Engelbart’s Augment (1968)

Features to Note: Dynamically resizable video and workspace Video in a window Integrated drawing and outlining From mouse click to screen repaint in ¼ second! When computers were much slower!

Lesson from PARC on system design: Infrastructure is a two-edged sword “Operating System: An operating system is a collection of things that don't fit into a language. There shouldn't be one.” Dan Ingalls, creator of Xerox PARC Smalltalks The lack of standards provided a level of flexibility (and speed!) that today’s infrastructure prohibits

Story 1: What ~30 Years of Learning Sciences tell us about the Dynabook Since the 1970’s, Learning Scientists (Resarchers in Cognitive Science, Education, AI, etc.) have studied learning Do people learn from watching multimedia? Do people learn from creating multimedia? How well do people learn programming?

Do media make a difference in learning? Not obvious “Equivalenced” media show little difference in learning benefit (Clark, 1983) But it may be that equivalencing is the problem (Kozma, 1991) Mixing media may make a big difference The case of animation Some studies show animations improve learning (Mayer, 1988) Many studies suggest animation has no benefit in learning (Stasko, Badre, Lewis, 1993), and can even hinder learning (Palmiter, Elkerton, Baggett, 1991)

Do people learn from creating media? Yes, and it’s a clearer case Children building educational software for other kids learn fractions and science (Harel, 1988; Kafai & Harel, 1990) Students building multimedia perform better on assessments (Hay et al., 1994) Students building multimedia recall more a year later (Carver, Lehrer, Connell, and Erickson, 1992)

How well do people learn programming? Really, really badly Freshmen and Sophomores at Yale couldn’t handle error conditions in loops in 1982 (Soloway et al.) Freshmen and Sophomores in 3 countries and 4 institutions can’t build calculators in 2001 (McCracken et al., 2001) Failure/withdrawal rate in CS1 is double-digits in most institutions Percentage of women and minorities in CS is falling

The role of collaboration We are social beings An audience/critic/colleague motivates/inspires/drives us Vygotsky claims that we practice first on the social plane what we later internalize Collaboration can help with learning Constructionism: Building a public representation of one’s knowledge facilitates learning (Papert, 1991; Resnick, Bruckman, Martin, 1996)

Collaboration can even help with learning programming MOOSE Crossing (Bruckman, 1997) Harel and Kafai studies STABLE (Guzdial & Kehoe, 1998)

A Research Goal: Collaborative Dynabooks Hypothesis: Collaboratively creating and exploring multimedia facilitates learning

Strategies for achieving Collaborative Dynabooks Integrate across levels to get useful, usable collaborative systems. Systems Strategy: Use standards where helpful; build for ourselves where not. Interfaces Strategy: Support the range of uses and users. Curriculum (Application context) Strategy: Aim for the majority—those who are not succeeding with current practice.

Story 2: CoWeb: Collaborative Websites as Collaborative Dynabooks Based on Ward Cunningham’s WikiWiki Web Hence it’s “other” name: Squeak Wiki -> Swiki Simple system: It’s a website Where any user can edit any page (caveat “locks”) And any user can create new pages

Using the CoWebCoWeb

Use in Architecture Originally, CoOL (Collaborative On-Line Studio) Grad students posting courthouse designs for courthouse designers to critique Won Architecture Magazine and American Institute of Architects Awards Why? A virtual design studio without specialized hardware that people could use

2Cool

Student Projects

Expert Comments

Use in Computer Science: As a Project Memory Group project in Digital Video Special Effects Each group has its own page for:own page Storing Storyboards.htmStoryboards.htm Storing the script, partials, final movie andpartials Even “The Making of…”“The Making of…”

Other uses: Midterm and final exam reviews Glossaries Case libraries Key: Teacher invented

Designing for the range of users Collaborations don’t have one kind of users In our university classroom setting: Students have to find what’s new and edit content Teaching assistants actually build pages for activities Teachers want to review specific activity quickly Visitors want to participate without learning all about the system

Features for the Range Students have to find what’s new and edit content Teaching assistants actually build pages for activities Teachers want to review quickly Visitors want to participate without learning all about the system For Students: Recent changes and HTML input For TA’s: Ability to rename and lock pages, and tailor look-and-feel For Teachers: Mail alerts on new page activity For Visitors: Pages can have “Add to this page” boxes

Swiki uses Squeak Squeak is Smalltalk-80 running on modern machines (over 30 platforms) Supporting wide range of media: Flash, MIDI, AIFF/WAV, MPEG Open-source Alan Kay, Dan Ingalls, Ted Kaehler from original Xerox PARC LRG Apple to Disney to Viewpoints Research

Breaking the Lines

Swiki uses Comanche (Squeak), Not Apache Apache has severe limitations Limited platform compatibility Application complexity Aimed toward production systems, not research exploration We built our own webserver in Squeak Runs on anything (important for ed context) Ease for users (tailored, fast) Not standards-free: Standards-selective

Story 3: Applying Collaborative Dynabooks to a Hard Learning Problem Focusing on multimedia collaboration for learning Creating an introductory programming course for non-CS majors: Introduction to Media Computation Continuing to multimedia data structures (Sp05) Using our system, interface, and curriculum to address Alan Kay’s end-user programming challenge

The Computer Science Undergraduate Degree is in Deep Trouble We’re losing students, at an increasing rate. Women and minority percentage of enrollment dropping High failure rates in CS1 (35-50% or more) Fewer applications into CS: “All programming jobs going overseas” Research results: “Tedious,” “boring,” “lacking creativity,” “asocial” All of this at a time when we recognize the critical role of IT in our economy, in all jobs

Can Collaboration help here? What if we taught computing as relevant, social, and creative? If the goal of a programming assignment was not to get a grade, but to produce something creative to share? Strategy: CS1 via Collaborative Dynabooks And now, CS2, too!

CS1315 Introduction to Media Computation 121 students in Spring 2003, with ~300/semester since then 2/3 female in Spring 2003 MediaComp 51% female over time Required in Architecture, Management, Liberal Arts, and Biology

Providing a Relevant and Creative Context Focus: Learning programming and CS concepts within the context of media manipulation and creation Converting images to grayscale and negatives, splicing and reversing sounds, writing programs to generate HTML, creating movies out of Web- accessed content. Computing for communications, not calculation

def negative(picture): for px in getPixels(picture): red=getRed(px) green=getGreen(px) blue=getBlue(px) negColor=makeColor(255-red,255-green,255-blue) setColor(px,negColor) def clearRed(picture): for pixel in getPixels(picture): setRed(pixel,0) def greyscale(picture): for p in getPixels(picture): redness=getRed(p) greenness=getGreen(p) blueness=getBlue(p) luminance=(redness+blueness+greenness)/3 setColor(p, makeColor(luminance,luminance,luminance))

Rough overview of Syllabus Defining and executing functions Pictures Psychophysics, data structures, defining functions, for loops, if conditionals Bitmap vs. vector notations Sounds Psychophysics, data structures, defining functions, for loops, if conditionals Sampled sounds vs. synthesized, MP3 vs. MIDI Text Converting between media, generating HTML, database, and networking Trees, hash tables Movies Then, Computer Science topics (last 1/3 class)

Computer science topics as solutions to their problems “Writing programs is hard! Are there ways to make it easier? Or at least shorter?” Object-oriented programming Functional programming and recursion “Movie-manipulating programs take a long time to execute. Why? How fast/slow can programs be?” Algorithmic complexity “Why is PhotoShop so much faster?” Compiling vs. interpreting Machine language and how the computer works

Results: Improved success rates Since Spring 2004, the developers aren’t the teachers. We are getting transfers into the CS major. Enrollment Success Rate Georgia Tech’s CS (average) % Media Computation Spring % Fall % Spring % Summer % Fall % Spring %

Were Students Motivated and Engaged? Homework assignments suggest they were. Shared on-line in collaborative web space (CoWeb) Some students reported writing programs outside of class for fun.

Example Student Work -Shared on the CoWeb Gallery

The author of this collage via IM as soon as she was done: “Well, I looked at last years’ collages, and I certainly can’t be beat.”

Students’ audio collages and animations SoupStephen Hawking

CS1316 “Representing structure and behavior” Driving question: “How did the wildebeests stampede in The Lion King?”

Sounds/Music in Trees and Lists Assignment: Create music by repeating and weaving nodes. Canon Swan Bells

Role of the Homework “Galleries” Q: What do you think about the homework galleries on the CoWeb? Student 4: It's nice to see other people, like what they did with it… And there is no better feeling than getting something done and knowing that you've done it right. Student 3: I don't ever look at it [the homework gallery] until after I'm done. I have a thing about not wanting to copy someone else's ideas. I just wish I had more time to play around with that and make neat effects. But JES [Jython Environment for Students---the programming environment created for this class] will be on my computer forever, so…the nice thing about this class is that you could go as deep into the homework as you wanted. So, I'd turn it [the homework assignment] in, and then me and my roommate would do more after to see what we could do with it.

What was the role of collaboration/CoWeb in the class? “Actually, I think [collaboration] is one of the best things about this class. My roommate and I abided by all the rules... but we took full advantage of the collaboration. It was more just the ideas bouncing off each other. I don’t think this class would have been as much fun if I wasn’t able to collaborate.” On CoWeb use: “Yes, it’s not just about the class…people talk about anything, it’s a little bit more friendly than just here’s your assignment.”

A Research Agenda for Collaborative Dynabooks How do we integrate across these levels? Systems How do we gain the speed of 1968’s Augment without surrendering the infrastructure of today? Interfaces How do we identify and support the different roles in a collaboration? Application/Curriculum How do we design to make best use of the potential of the Collaborative Dynabook?

Conclusions The Dynabook vision serves as an inspiration to us today, as it did to Xerox PARC in the 70’s. Learning Science supports that collaborative dynabooks can help learning At Georgia Tech, we are creating and using Collaborative Dynabooks to improve learning with some success. The Dynabook is also a metaphor: Setting a high goal to challenge our perspective.

Acknowledgements Faculty Collaborators: Lissa Holloway-Attaway, Craig Zimring, Sabir Khan, Tom Morley, Matthew Realff, Pete Ludovice Research Students: Jochen “Je77” Rick, Colleen Kehoe, David Craig, Lex Spoon, Bolot Kerimbaev, Karen Carroll Course Materials Development: Adam Wilson, Jason Ergle, Claire Bailey, David Raines, Joshua Sklare, Mark Richman, Matt Wallace, Alisa Bandlow, Ellie Harmon, Yu Cheung Ho, Keith McDermott, Eric Mickley, Larry Olson, Lauren Biddle Assessment: Allison Tew, Andrea Forte, Rachel Fithian, Lauren Rich, Heather Perry, Ellie Harmon Thanks to Bob McMath and the Al West Fund, to GVU and CoC, to the students who participated in our evaluation, and to the National Science Foundation

Thank you! Mark Guzdial To get the CoWeb/Swiki software: For more on courses: