SIGCSE 2008 : Portland, OR
Rediscovering the Passion, Beauty, Joy and Awe : Making
Computing Fun Again
2008-03-14 @ 10:30am – 11:45am
Lecturer SOE Dan Garcia
UC Berkeley
(2/15) Passion, Beauty, Joy, Awe : Ownership & Creativity
Thought Exercise #1 Close your eyes In your mind’s
eye… Think of the last
time you felt real physical pain
Questions What time of day
was it? What was the
weather? Where were you?
(3/15) Passion, Beauty, Joy, Awe : Ownership & Creativity
Thought Exercise #2 Close your eyes In your mind’s eye
Think of any significant experience you wish
Be it pleasurable or not, recent or not, etc.
Questions What time of day was
it? What was the
weather? Where were you?
(4/15) Passion, Beauty, Joy, Awe : Ownership & Creativity
Why do we do this to our students?
We don't need no thought control…Teachers leave those kids alone…
– Pink Floyd, The Wall
(5/15) Passion, Beauty, Joy, Awe : Ownership & Creativity
Ownership and Creativity! Traditional projects
YOU give them the spec YOU tell them what to do YOU give them the interesting dataset
Rethinking projects! THEY come up with the project YOU help them keep their project
reasonable This “calibration” step is critical. Difficulty
multiplier? THEY tell you what their check-ins will be THEY find the interesting dataset
(6/15) Passion, Beauty, Joy, Awe : Ownership & Creativity
This is not Novel! Montessori method… Many Jr/Sr-level
courses have student-chosen projects Why not in CS1/CS2? Extra “calibration”
effort is worth it… Georgia Tech
Computational Media CS1
One reason of success (imho) is it’s THEIR data
Wil Justis, Milton HSWil Justis, Milton HS
(7/15) Passion, Beauty, Joy, Awe : Ownership & Creativity
It goes to 11…
(8/15) Passion, Beauty, Joy, Awe : Ownership & Creativity
Where have all the flowers gone? Why do top
students have to go away when the class is over?
Why can’t we have incubators to nuture THEIR multi-semester projects?
(9/15) Passion, Beauty, Joy, Awe : Ownership & Creativity
GamesCrafters : Game TheoryGamesCrafters.berkeley.eduGamesCrafters.berkeley.edu Undergradu
ate computational game theory research and development group
~40 students per semester
They choose their own projects!
(10/15)Passion, Beauty, Joy, Awe : Ownership & Creativity
2007Sp GamesCrafters
(11/15)Passion, Beauty, Joy, Awe : Ownership & Creativity
MS-DOS X : Mac Programming Macintosh Software
Developers for OS X Said: “MS-DOS … not!”
Small & enthusiastic community of budding Mac OS X programmers
Tutorials, UI standards
Design, code reviews Software pipeline ~15 students / sem
MSDOSX.berkeley.eduMSDOSX.berkeley.edu
(12/15)Passion, Beauty, Joy, Awe : Ownership & Creativity
2006Fa MS-DOS X students
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UC Berkeley Undergrad Graphics Group Goal: bring together the
best undergraduate computer graphics & animation talent on campus in one place CS students and artists!
~25 students / semester They work individually
& in teams on projects 2D/3D fractals, designs Procedural geometry CG Images & animations
Compilation DVD
UCBUGG.berkeley.eduUCBUGG.berkeley.edu
UCBUGG : Pixar “light”
(14/15)Passion, Beauty, Joy, Awe : Ownership & Creativity
2006Fa UCBUGGers
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Conclusion Ownership and
Creativity Tap their passion
Allow THEM to specify their projects Watch the beauty
Support THEIR interesting multi-semester projects Share the joy you have
Coding as recreation! Watch results with awe
If you build it…
they
will
come