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School of Interactive Computing Technical Report Series

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Author: Guzdial, Mark ×

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Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Performance and Use Evaluation of an Electronic Book for Introductory Python Programming
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2012) Alvarado, Christine ; Morrison, Briana ; Ericson, Barbara ; Guzdial, Mark ; Miller, Brad ; Ranum, David L.
    Electronic books (ebooks) provide the opportunity to go beyond the limitations of a physical page. These opportunities are particularly important for computing education, where dynamic information is a key characteristic of our domain. An electronic book can provide opportunities to program or conduct analyses that are impossible on the physical page, integrating instructional information with creative exploration. However, just because ebooks provide these opportunities does not mean that we know how students will actually use ebooks in the context of a class. Miller and Ranum have produced an electronic book for teaching introductory computing in Python. We explored how students used the dynamic and novel features of the book, and correlated that use with performance on learning measures. We found that students made extensive use of the traditional programming environment in the book, but that the lesser-used visualization tool was better correlated with student performance. In addition, we found that although students reported high levels of satisfaction with the book, they appeared to use it much like a traditional textbook, making less use of many of the interactive features of the book than we expected.
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    Computer Science Construct Use, Learning, and Creative Credit in a Graphic Design Community
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008-02) Dorn, Brian ; Tew, Allison Elliott ; Guzdial, Mark
    End-users, who are projected to outnumber professional programmers in the next decade, present a unique opportunity to understand how computer science knowledge is acquired in the real world. We conducted an analysis of projects created by end-user programmers to discern their adoption of introductory computing constructs. A variety of project sizes were represented in the data, ranging from fewer than 100 lines of source code to greater than 1500. Many introductory computing constructs were highly adopted, but some were relatively unused. As these variations in adoption could be indications of topic complexity, we compared our findings to previous work in the novice programming literature. Additionally, a data-driven analysis provided insight into user sharing and reuse practices. Many distinct approaches to copyright and code ownership concerns were found in the projects studied, and their potential impact on end-user learning was considered.
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    What Makes Teachers Change? Factors that Influence Post-secondary Teachers’ Adoption of New Computing Curricula
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008) Ni, Lijun ; Guzdial, Mark
    This study explores factors that influence teachers’ adoption of curriculum innovations in the context of one specific innovation—Contextualized Computing Curricula. From a teacher-oriented perspective, we propose a theoretical model to represent hypotheses regarding potential adoption factors with an emphasis on the knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes that teachers hold about curriculum, students and themselves. We conducted a pilot study to examine those proposed factors through three summer workshops in 2007. We use the results of the pilot study to extend and refine the proposed model. Our findings indicate that teacher excitement in the new course drives adoption, while systemic issues inhibit adoption. This model might potentially provide a basis for researchers to devise effective strategies for removing barriers that prevent teachers’ adoption, and thereby foster the dissemination of innovations emerging from the learning sciences community.
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    Art or Circus? Characterizing User-Created Video on YouTube
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008) Landry, Brian M. ; Guzdial, Mark
    Video and networking technologies have advanced such that posting and viewing video online is practical. Everyday people now post video online to communicate asynchronously with remote audiences. This paper explores the forms in which people communicate on the popular video sharing website YouTube. It also examines whether end-user video creators on YouTube use plot-based storytelling as a communication strategy. We analyzed popular content on YouTube and found the majority of that content showcases everyday people engaging in uncommon activities. Furthermore, a small minority of popular video actually tells a story. Based on our findings, we propose the compostion gap as a means of conceptualizing the disparity between video content on You- Tube and professional content. We then discuss opportunities for designing technologies to support communication through performance-based video as well as story-based video.