1. Constructing Media as a Context for Teaching Computing and Motivating Women and Non-Majors: Inventing a new approach to computing education at Georgia Tech Mark Guzdial Associate Professor College of Computing/GVU Georgia Institute of Technology

2. Computer Science Education is Facing Challenging Times Nationally Women and minority percentage of enrollment in CS dropping High failure rates in CS1 (35-50% or more) Fewer applications into CS (~20%) “All programming jobs going overseas” Research results: “Irrelevant,” “tedious,” “boring,” “lacking creativity,” “asocial” At a time when we recognize the critical role of IT in our economy, in all jobs

3. Strategy: Make CS education ubiquitous Motivate non-CS students to care about computing. Create non-traditional courses, minors, and non- traditional paths into CS Reach out beyond Georgia Tech Make it relevant, social, and creative.

4. Why should we focus on non-CS majors? Computer science is more important than Calculus In 1961, Alan Perlis argued that computer science should be part of a liberal education. Explicitly, he argued that all students should learn to program. Calculus is about rates, and that’s important to many. Computer science is about process, which is important to everyone

5. The best uses for computing technologies will come from others Thomas Edison vs. D.W. Griffith Suggestion: D.W. Griffith knew things that Edison didn’t. If we want computing technologies to become useful, they have to get out of our hands. Innovation with computing can’t be just through applications. Computer science will never have the potential that it might, if future practitioners hate our introductory course!

6. CS1315 Introduction to Media Computation Started with 121 students in Spring 2003, and averaging 300/term since then 2/3 female in Spring 2003 MediaComp Required in Architecture, Management, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, and Biology 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

7. 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))

8. Issues in selecting Python as the programming language Significant issue: Non-CS faculty, who don’t program, but choosing for their students. Use in commercial contexts authenticates the choice IL&M, Google, Nextel, etc. Looks like other programming languages Potential for transfer

9. Relevance through Data-first Computing Real users come to a user with data that they care about, then they (unwillingly) learn the computer to manipulate their data as they need. “Media Computation” works like that. Students do use their own pictures as starting points for manipulations. Starting in the second week of the course! Some students reversed sounds looking for hidden messages.

10. 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)

11. Computer science inter-mixed We talk about algorithms across media Sampling a picture (to scale it) is the same algorithm as sampling a sound (to shift frequency) Blending two pictures (fading one into the other) and two sounds is the same algorithm. We talk about representations and mappings (Goedel) From samples to numbers (and into Excel), through a mapping to pixel colors

12. 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

13. Liberal collaboration policy On 6 homeworks, any collaboration allowed. On two “take home exams” (programming assignments), no collaboration allowed. CoWeb (Collaborative Website) created social context for class. Q&A like on a newsgroup Exam reviews Posting completed media for sharing. http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/cs1315

14. CoWeb: Collaborative Websites Based on Ward Cunningham’s WikiWiki Web Hence it’s “other” name: Squeak Wiki -> Swiki http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/swiki Simple system: It’s a website Where any user can edit any page (caveat “locks”) And any user can create new pages

15. Using the CoWebCoWeb

16. Does the class work? In Spring 2003, 121 students (2/3 female), 3 drops Since Spring 2004, the developers aren’t the teachers 60% of students surveyed at end of course say that they want a second course. These are non-majors, who have already fulfilled their requirement We are getting transfers into the CS major. Success Rate Average GT’s CS1 (2000-2002) 72.2% Media Computation Spring 2003 88.5% Fall 2003 87.5% Spring 2004 90.5%

17. Were Students Motivated and Engaged? Survey responses (Sp03) suggest that students responded well to the context of media manipulation and creation. Q. What do you like best about this course? Course Don't like it/Nothing Enjoy Content Content is Useful Trad. CS1 18.2%12.1%0.0% Engin12.9%16.1%25.8% Media Comp 0.0%21.3%12.4%

18. 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.

19. Example Student Work -Shared on the CoWeb Gallery

20. 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.”

21. Example student work - Movies and audio homework SoupStephen Hawking

22. Study-Abroad CS

23. How did Women Respond to the Course? Did we make it: Relevant? Creative? Social?

24. How did Women Respond to the Course? Did we make it: Relevant? “I dreaded CS, but ALL of the topics thus far have been applicable to my future career (& personal) plans—there isn't anything I don't like about this class!!!” Creative? Social?

25. How did Women Respond to the Course? Did we make it: Relevant? Creative? “I just wish I had more time to play around with that and make neat effects. But JES will be on my computer forever, so… that’s the nice thing about this class is that you could go as deep into the homework as you wanted. So, I’d turn it in and then me and my roommate would do more after to see what we could do with it.” Social?

26. How did Women Respond to the Course? Did we make it: Relevant? Creative? Social? “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.” 20% of Spring 2003 students said “Collaboration” was best part of CS1315

27. Following-up Survey: Did it have a lasting impact? In Spring 2004, conducted an email survey with students from Spring 2003 (n=120) and Fall 2003 (n=305) students. 59 responses 11 (19%) had written a Python program on their own since the class had ended. 27% had edited media

28. “Did the class change how you interact with computers?” 20% said no. 80% said yes, but it was also more about changing how they thought about computers. “Definitely makes me think of what is going on behind the scenes of such programs like Photoshop and Illustrator.” “I feel more comfortable around computers and like i could learn and understand other computer programming languages more easily. “Other than making me a little more aware about what I can make the computer do, it hasn't changed the way I particular interact with technology. Yet I am uninterested in this field. However, I now have a MUCH better understanding of the people who are interested in this field, how they view things, and how to interact with them more easily. For this, I appreciate the CS class greatly.”

29. Next steps… A second course CS1316 “Representing structure and behavior” to be offered in Spring 2005 Present a standard (ACM/IEEE CC2001) CS2, but still in a media context First course is about surface level features Professional media manipulation also represents structure: Tree of verses/chorus, scene graph If we represent behavior, too, can make stampedes (Lion King) and villagers (Hunchback) by simply filming the simulation. Discrete event simulation’s event queue is a place where sorting is natural in a media context.

30. Next steps… An alternative path and a minor The two courses (Introduction to Media Computation and Representing Structure and Behavior) will become a pre-req to our traditional second course. Margolis and Fisher’s “alternative path” We are now getting transfers into the CS major Defined a CS minor Created new BS in Computational Media Joint with School of Literature, Communications, and Culture

31. Next steps… Moving beyond GT Versions of Media Computation appearing at other institutions Gainesville College (2 year in Ga.) has been offering the course for over a year. Just moved their major’s CS1 to Media Computation Dennison University is first trial of our Java version. University of Illinois at Chicago, U. California Santa Cruz, DePauw, Brandeis (in Scheme), Georgia Perimeter College (in Java) teaching their own versions (most using our materials).

32. Gainesville College Results

33. “Would you like to take more courses in CS or Media Computation?”

34. Next steps… Applying the approach for high school teachers Used the Media Computation approach (in Java) with high school teachers in a two week workshop during Summer 2004. Materials developed by and course taught by Barbara Ericson Aimed at the Programming and Systems Management course Teachers did some of the same activities that we use with the undergrads, e.g., the Collage activity. Positive responses “This was the best (non-college credit) workshop I have ever taken!”

35. Towards a discipline of Computing Education Computing Education (like MathEd or ScienceEd) is the study of how people understand and reason about computational devices and processes, and how we can improve that understanding. Can we finally learn why some get programming when so many do not? What are the implications of everyone learning Computing?

36. Summary CS Education is in a sorry state, and fixing it is important to us and others Media Computation seems to be a useful context to motivate student retention and learning. Just started on evaluation: learning assessment, impact of collaborative policies on student motivation, impact on long term choices about CS learning Broad implications for computing as part of a general, liberal education.

37. Acknowledgements Faculty Collaborators: Barbara Ericson, Charles Fowler (Gainesville) 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: Andrea Forte, Rachel Fithian, Lauren Rich, Heather Perry, Ellie Harmon, Bob Amar, Rachel Knickmeyer, Allison Tew 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

38. Thank you! Mark Guzdial http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~mark.guzdial http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/csl To get the CoWeb/Swiki software: http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/swiki For more on course (including software and slides): http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/mediacomp-plan