New computer science students are far more motivated when they are creating programs they care about. Reflecting that insight, this complete first course in Java introduces each new concept in the context of programs that manipulate students'own sounds, pictures, web pages, and video: programs that help them communicate. Mark Guzdial and Barbara Ericson draw on their innovative work at Georgia Tech, work that has significantly improved student success, and earned the recognition of the National Science Foundation. This book presents new techniques only after demonstrating why students need them to solve meaningful problems. Students can then run their digital media programs get immediate feedback that helps them stay on the right track. Open-ended assignments are designed to motivate, promote creativity, and encourage collaboration and friendly competition, using the simple, intuitive, lightweight DrJava development environment. At the same time, students learn to create robust, efficient Java code for any IDE or platform.Skills include: *fundamentals of object development *loops, arrays, and matrices *drawing with Java's Graphics and Graphics2D classes *generating HTML databases and using basic SQL queries *understanding and modifying algorithms *program performance and reliability A dual-platform CD-ROM (for Macintosh(R) and Windows(R)) includes raw media materials and programming source code for the book's exercises and all necessary software, including Sun Microsystems' Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition and more.
Mark Guzdial is a professor in the School of Interactive Computing in the College of Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology. He is one of the founders of the ACM’s International Computing Education Research workshop series. Dr. Guzdial’s research focuses on learning sciences and technology, specifically, computing education research. His first books were on the programming language Squeak and its use in education. He was the original developer of “Swiki” (Squeak Wiki), the first wikideveloped explicitly for use in schools. Mark has published several books on the use of media as a context for learning computing, which have influenced undergraduate computing curricula around the world. He is on the editorial boards of the Journal of the Learning Sciences and Communications of the ACM. He was a recipient of the 2012 IEEE Computer Society Undergraduate Teaching Award. He is a Senior Member of the ACM.
Barbara Ericson is a research scientist and the director of Computing Outreach for the College of Computing at Georgia Tech. She has been working on improving introductory computing education since 2004. She has served as the teacher education representative on the Computer Science Teachers Association board, the co-chair of the K-12 Alliance for the National Center for Women in Information Technology, and as a reader for the Advanced Placement Computer Science exams. She enjoys the diversity of the types of problems she has worked on over the years in computing including computer graphics, artificial intelligence, medicine, and object-oriented programming. Mark and Barbara received the 2010 ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Award for Outstanding Computer Educator for their work on Media Computation including this book. They led a project called “Georgia Computes!” for six years, which had a significant impact in improving computing education in the US state of Georgia [3]. Together, they Mark and Barbara are leaders in the Expanding Computing Education.
