Guzdial introduces programming as a way of creating and manipulating media—a context familiar and intriguing to today's readers.
Starts readers with actual programming early on. Puts programming in a relevant context (Computing for Communications). Includes implementing Photoshop-like effects, reversing/splicing sounds, creating animations. Acknowledges that readers in this audience care about the Web; introduces HTML and covers writing programs that generate HTML. Uses the Web as a Data Source; shows readers how to read from files, but also how to write programs to directly read Web pages and distill information from there for use in other calculations, other Web pages, etc. (examples include temperature from a weather page, stock prices from a financials page).
A comprehensive guide for anyone interested in learning the basics of programming with one of the best web languages, Python.
About the Author, Mark J. Guzdial
Mark Guzdial is a Professor in the School of Interactive Computing in the College of Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology. His research focuses on learning sciences and technology, specifically, computer science education research. He has published five books on the use of media as a context for learning computer science, including Squeak: Object-Oriented Design with Multimedia Applications; Squeak: Open Personal Computing and Multimedia; and Introduction to Computing and Programming in Python: A Multimedia Approach. He received the Ph.D. degree in Education and Computer Science from the University of Michigan in 1993. He serves on the ACM Education Board as vice-chair, and is on the editorial boards of the "Journal of the Learning Sciences" and "Communications 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 for over 5 years.
She is currently the teacher education representative on the Computer Science Teachers Association board and the co-chair of the K-12 Alliance for the National Center for Women in Information Technology. 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.
