Introduction to Media Computation:
Inventing a new approach to
computing education at Georgia Tech
Mark Guzdial
Associate Professor
College of Computing/GVU
Georgia Institute of Technology
Computer Science Education
is Facing Challenging Times

Nationally
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Women and minority percentage of
enrollment in CS dropping
High failure rates in CS1 (35-50% or more)
Fewer applications into CS (~20%)

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“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
Strategy:
Make CS education ubiquitous

Motivate non-CS students to care about
computing.

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Create non-traditional courses, minors, and nontraditional paths into CS
Reach out beyond Georgia Tech
Make it relevant, social, and creative.
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
CS1315 Introduction to Media
Computation

Started with 121 students in Spring 2003,
and averaging 300/term since then

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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
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

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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.
Rough overview of Syllabus
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Defining and executing functions
Pictures
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Sounds
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Psychophysics, data structures, defining functions, for
loops, if conditionals
Sampled sounds vs. synthesized, MP3 vs. MIDI
Text

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Psychophysics, data structures, defining functions, for
loops, if conditionals
Bitmap vs. vector notations
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?”

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“Movie-manipulating programs take a long time to
execute. Why? How fast/slow can programs be?”
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Object-oriented programming
Functional programming and recursion
Algorithmic complexity
“Why is PhotoShop so much faster?”

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Compiling vs. interpreting
Machine language and how the computer works
Does the class work?
Success
Rate
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In Spring 2003, 121 students
(2/3 female),
3 drops
Since Spring 2004, the
developers aren’t the teachers
Average
GT’s CS1
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.
Media
Computation
Spring 2003
88.5%
Fall 2003
87.5%
Spring 2004
90.5%
72.2%
(2000-2002)
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
QuickTime™ and a
Cinepak decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Soup
QuickTime™ and a
Cinepak decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Stephen Hawking
Study-Abroad
CS
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
QuickTime™ and a
Cinepak decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
How did Women Respond to
the Course?

Did we make it:



Relevant?
Creative?
Social?
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?
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?
How did Women Respond to
the Course?

Did we make it:



Relevant?
Creative?
Social?
20% of Spring 2003 students said
“Collaboration” was best part of
CS1315
“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.”
Following-up Survey:
Did it have a lasting impact?

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In Spring 2004, conducted an email survey
with students from Spring 2003 (n=120) and
Fall 2003 (n=305) students.
59 responses

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11 (19%) had written a Python program on their
own since the class had ended.
27% had edited media
“Did the class change how you
interact with computers?”

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20% said no.
80% said yes, but it was also more about changing
how they thought about computers.

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“Definitely makes me think of what is going on behind the
scenes of such programs like Photoshop and Illustrator.”
“I have learned more about the big picture behind
computer science and programming. This has helped me
to figure out how to use programs that I've never used
before, troubleshoot problems on my own computer, use
programs that I was already familiar with in a more
sophisticated way, and given me more confidence to try to
problem solve, explore, and fix my computer.”
Next steps…
A second course and an alternative path

CS1316 Representing structure and behavior to be
offered in Spring 2005
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Essentially, data structures in a media context
Context: How professional animators and computer
musicians do their programming
The two courses (CS1315 and CS1316) will be sufficient to
take the rest of our traditional CS courses
A CS minor now exists to support blending CS and
other majors
BoR just approved new BS in Computational Media

Joint with School of Literature, Communication, and
Culture
Next steps…
Moving beyond GT
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Versions of Media Computation appearing at
other institutions
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Gainesville College (2 year in Ga.) has been
offering the course for over a year.
Kennesaw is considering adopting the course.
University of Illinois at Chicago, U. California
Santa Cruz, DePauw, Brandeis (in Scheme),
Georgia Perimeter College and Dennison
University (in Java) teaching their own versions
using our materials.
Gainesville College Results
“Would you like to take more courses
in CS or Media Computation?”
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.
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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!”
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, 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 course (including software and
slides):
http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/mediacomp-plan