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
College of Computing/GVU
Georgia Institute of Technology
Story


Creating ubiquitous computing education
First course: Introduction to Media Computation
 It’s about context
 What students do in it



The role of collaboration
Second course: Representing Structure and Behavior
Next steps
 Beyond the course: A path into CS
 Beyond Georgia Tech and undergrads
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


Strategy:
Make CS education ubiquitous

Motivate non-CS students to care about
computing.



Create non-traditional courses, minors, and nontraditional paths into CS
Reach out beyond Georgia Tech
Make it relevant, social, and creative.
Our Three Introductory
Courses (CS1’s)



CS1321 Introduction to Computing
Traditional CS1 for our CS majors, Science
majors (math, physics, psychology, etc.).
Was in Scheme, now in Python.
CS1371 Computing for Engineers
CS1 for Engineers. Same topics as CS1321,
but using MATLAB with Engineering
problems in homework and examples.
CS1315 Introduction to Media Computation
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
 Overall, CS1315 has been 51% female
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
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))
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)
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.
Impact on Student Retention
Enrollment
Success
Rate
Georgia Tech’s CS 1
2000 - 2002
(average)
930

71.2%

Media Computation
Spring 2003
120
90.0%
Fall 2003
303
86.5%
Spring 2004
395
86.9%
Summer 2004
120
73.3%
Fall 2004
366
80.3%
Spring 2005
317
84.5%

Since Spring 2004, the
developers aren’t the
teachers.
We are getting transfers
into the CS major.
For traditional CS1,
Sp2005 had 95 students,
70.0% success rate.
 Engineering CS1
Spring 2005: 833
students, 76% success
rate.
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
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.”
Example student work
- Movies and audio homework
Soup
Stephen Hawking
Study-Abroad
CS
Role of the Homework
“Galleries”
Q: What do you think about the homework galleries on theCoWeb?
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.
Follow-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=303) students.
59 responses


11 (19%) had written a Python program on their
own since the class had ended.
27% had edited media that they hadn’t previously.
“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.”

“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.”
Second course: CS1316 “Representing
structure and behavior”


Driving question:
“How did the
wildebeests
stampede in The
Lion King?”
31 students, 75%
female, 91%
success rate.
Similar Assignments,
but with Objects
*
Sounds/Music in Trees and
Lists
Assignment: Create
music by repeating
and weaving nodes.
Canon
Swan
Bells
Beyond the courses:
An alternative path and a CS minor

The two courses (Introduction to Media Computation
and Representing Structure and Behavior) are now
accepted as pre-req to our traditional second
course.

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
Margolis and Fisher’s “alternative path”
We have now defined a CS minor
Created new BS in Computational Media


Joint with School of Literature, Communications, and
Culture
58 majors in first year, 24% female
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.

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Just moved their major’s CS1 to Media Computation
Denison University is first trial of our Java
version.
University of Illinois at Chicago, Australian
National U., U. California Santa Cruz, DePauw,
Brandeis (in Scheme), Georgia Perimeter College
and University of Maryland at College Park (in
Java) (using some of our materials).
Gainesville College Results
Success rates at Gainesville College before
and with Media Computation class.
ENROLLMENT
SUCCESS RATE
28
70.2%
Summer 2003
9
77.8%
Fall 2003
39
84.6%
Spring 2004
22
77.3%
Summer 2004
11
90.9%
Gainesville’s CSCI 1100
Average 2000 – 2003
Media Computation
“Would you like to take more courses
in CS or Media Computation?”
GEORGIA TECH
GAINESVILLE
CS
Media
Comp
CS
Media
Comp
Strongly
Agree
4.1%
16.1%
6.2%
12.5%
Agree
19.3%
26.5%
25.0%
37.5%
Neutral
23.8%
23.3%
43.8%
18.8%
Disagree 37.7%
22.9%
25.0%
25.0%
Strongly
15.2%
Disagree
11.2%
0.0%
6.2%
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
Bottom line: Context is a win.
Broad implications for computing as part of a
general, liberal education.
Acknowledgements


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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, Allison Tew, 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
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 MediaComp approach
(including software and slides):
http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/mediacompplan