Media Computation for CS1

Media Computation for CS1 Barbara EricsonGeorgia Institute of Technology Barbara Ericson Promising Practices in CS1

Promising Practices in CS1 What is Media Computation? • Learning computing using media projects • Teaching iteration by looping through all the pixels of a picture, all the samples in a sound, or all the frames in a movie. • Teaching conditionals using red-eye removal, chromakey and force to extremes • Teaching strings by writing programs that create HTML pages • A set of classes that make these programs easy to write • in Python or Java Barbara Ericson

public void forceToExtremes() { SoundSample[] sampleArray = this.getSamples(); for (SoundSample sample : sampleArray) { /* if the value was positive or 0 set * it to the maximum * positive value */ if (sample.getValue() >= 0) { sample.setValue(32767); } else { sample.setValue(-32768) } } } Promising Practices in CS1 An Example Program Barbara Ericson

Promising Practices in CS1 History of Media Computation • Developed by Mark Guzdial of Georgia Tech • Fall 1999 – all GT students must take CS1! • Led to 26-35% failure rate • Women failed at a higher rate than men • up to 40% • Over 50% failure rate for some majors • Management, History, Public Policy, Architecture Barbara Ericson

Promising Practices in CS1 Why Media Computation? • Contextualized computing education should make computing more relevant and concrete • CS1315: Introduction to Media Computation • Using Python with a Media context • For management, history, public policy, architecture majors • CS1371: Computing for Engineers • Using MATLAB with an Engineering context • CS1321: CS1 for Computer Science Majors • Using Python with a robotics context Barbara Ericson

Promising Practices in CS1 Results? • Media Computation (CS1315) since Fall 2003 at GT • The failure rate has dropped significantly • Women do better than men • about 4% better • failure rates of 7% v 11%, 10% v 14%, 17% v 22% • Some non-majors have transferred into computer science! Barbara Ericson

Promising Practices in CS1 How is Media Comp Used? • in CS1 • Used for non-majors at Georgia Tech, Un. Calif at Berkeley, and others • Used for CS majors at U. Ill-Chicago, Kalamazoo College, Gainesville College, and others • in CS2 • Used at Georgia Tech, Gainesville College, Linfield College • in High School • for pre-AP, AP, and summer camps in Georgia, Tennesee, Bermuda, and others • Other institutions report similar results Barbara Ericson

Promising Practices in CS1 What Works? • Open ended-creative projects • students turn in their homework and then keep working on the project to see what else they can do • Allow students to share their work • I can't be beat! • Transfer from Python to Java • cs1315 to cs1316 Soup-Audio Collage Barbara Ericson

Promising Practices in CS1 Future Media Computation Work • Working on a textbook for a CS2 course with Media Computation • http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/cs1316/ • Working on a textbook merging Alice and Media Computation • http://home.cc.gatech.edu/TeaParty • The robotics course is adding some media computation projects • www.roboteducation.org Barbara Ericson

Promising Practices in CS1 CS2 Media Computation • Driving question: “How did the wildebeests stampede in The Lion King?” • Linked lists of music • Trees of sounds and images • Simulations using stacks and queues Canon Barbara Ericson

Promising Practices in CS1 Additional Resources • Python and Java books • Course web sites • http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/cs1315/ • http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/cs1316/ • Teachers web site http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/mediaComp-teach • Mailing List https://mailman.cc.gatech.edu/mailman/listinfo/mediacomp-teach Barbara Ericson

Promising Practices in CS1 Funding Sources • National Science Foundation • Georgia Tech's College of Computing • Georgia’s Department of Education • GVU Center • Al West Fund • President's Undergraduate Research Award • Toyota Foundation • Atlanta Women's Foundation Barbara Ericson

Media Computation for CS1