William J. Joel

Wikis: collaborative learning for cs education

Wikis may be on track to take the academic world by storm. Though researchers have used them as collaborative tools for more than a decade, it is only in the past year or two that they have become widespread in education. Of the articles published by SIGCSE on wikis, nearly two-thirds (30 out of 46) of them gave appeared since the beginning of 2006. References to wikis in the educational database ERIC are approximately doubling each year. What is it about wikis that has suddenly made them so attractive? Among other things, it is the fact that collaboration becomes so easy. Students have the opportunity to revise each other’s work without the need to send documents back and forth. Because an edit history is kept, it is easy to see how much work each student has done—and to verify that it has not been downloaded from a third-party source on the eve of the due date. Wikis have been used for a wide variety of assignments, from discussion boards to writing a textbook from student contributions. This panel will present several collaborativelearning exercises that have been carried out with wikis, and give advice to instructors who want to use wikis in their classes.

Undergraduate Research Project

Many engineering faculty, both nationally and locally, have long recognized the significant educational benefits of undergraduate experiences in research environments. In fact, the National Science Foundation allocates a large sum of funding for their Research Experience for Undergraduates program. The project proposed here is designed to develop a self-supporting mechanism to make this opportunity available to a large percentage of the undergraduate engineering population at The University of Alabama. The concept and approach is briefly described on the following pages. The primary participating faculty are listed below:

Living in a digital world: teaching computers and society via literature

ACM Curriculum Guidelines recommend that a degree on Computer Science include topics concerning the societal and ethical impact of computer technologies. As an alternative to traditional approaches to teaching these concepts, a course was created based on selected fictional narratives. A benefit of using fiction is that it often reflects general societal views as opposed to those of the technologically adept.

Delayed feedback in a Chinese brush painting interface

In order to provide a sense of working with organic shapes, when designing images in the style of Chinese brush paintings, a delay was introduced into the motion of this objects as they are manipulated by the user. This delay should also provide a similar organic feel to subsequent animations.

A kinesthetic exercise for teaching computer animation

As Professors of Computer Science and Art, we have been asked, over the years, to teach courses ranging from fundamental illustration techniques to graduate level courses in computer graphics. But there has been one fundamental principle we have seen over and over again. It is that regardless of the sophistication of the tool, if the user has not grasped the underlying principles the likelihood of true success is slim. If this is a lesson quickly learned by most educators, then why do some, and the texts we choose, focus on the tool as opposed to the underlying skill?

Development of an open source motion capture system

Motion capture (MoCap) has been one of the leading and most useful tools within the field of animation to capture fluid and detailed motion. However, it can be quite expensive for animators, game developers and educators on a tight budgets. By using Raspberry Pi Zeros, with NoIR cameras and IR LED light rings, the cost of a four-camera system can potentially be reduced to less than 1000 USD. The research described should lead to an effective and useful system, able to detect multiple markers, record their coordinates, and keep track of them as they move. With a setup of three or more cameras, one would be able to triangulate the data on a low-cost host computer. All software and hardware designs will be disseminated open source, providing anyone who is interested in MoCap, whether it be for hobbyist, semi-professional, or educational purposes, a system for a fraction of the typical cost.

The need for interdisciplinary undergraduate research

In 2009, the ACM/SIGGRAPH Education Committee established an Undergraduate Research Alliance [Undergraduate Research Alliance] to foster the development of undergraduate research, in computer graphics and interactive techniques, across all related disciplines. Since its inception, the Alliance has hosted sessions at the annual SIGGRAPH conferences to allow educators and other the chance to discuss what they have accomplished and what still needs to be done. If we in the SIGGRAPH community wish to continue to expand the envelope of knowledge, it is necessary that we engage students in the exploration of new ideas as early as possible in their education. The purpose of this poster, therefore, is to present a case study for undergraduate research with the hopes that it spurs others to join in this endeavor.