The Female Perspective of Computer Science

You Will Fail to Have a Great Career — Unless...

2012-01-16T14:57:00.000-05:00

Larry Smith told the TEDxUW (University of Waterloo) audience that they will fail to have a great career. After all, there are ever so many excuses that crop up to justify why you can't follow your passion. Alas, there is no such thing as a "good" career according to Larry, so if you try to settle for one, you'll just end up with one of those terrible, soul-sucking jobs. Unless...

(video link)

Unless.

Real Computer Science in High Schools

2012-01-13T13:12:00.003-05:00

As someone who is always looking for outreach opportunities with middle and high school students, I enjoyed The Guardian's recent article called Michael Gove to scrap 'boring' IT lessons: Schools to be given freedom to run cutting-edge computer classes under plans for open source curriculum. From the article:

In a speech, the education secretary will say the existing curriculum in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has left children "bored out of their minds being taught how to use Word and Excel by bored teachers".

Instead he will, in effect, create an "open source" curriculum in computer science by giving schools the freedom to use teaching resources designed with input from leading employers and academics, in changes that will come into effect this September.

I interpreted the initiative to be similar to the curriculum I designed for our department's elective introduction to computers class for arts and social science students. That course, too, has traditionally been mostly about how to use Microsoft Office software. My version covered that only briefly, focusing instead on computer science topics from programming in Scratch and searching and sorting algorithms all the way to human computer interaction. Based on feedback from students and TA's, this was definitely a move in the right direction. It's great to see similar changes happening in high schools.

An Exciting New Year

2011-12-31T12:03:00.000-05:00

2011 was special, particularly with the arrival of our daughter Molly. But 2012 is looking pretty great, too!

Although I wasn't able to get an NSF grant application in for Gram's House as planned, one of the researchers I was working with and I have teamed up with another group doing something similar. If that grant gets funded, it leaves us with an opportunity to extend it later with Gram's House. At the same time, the Gram's House researcher is (hopefully) running a pilot project at her university this summer that will help us learn more about how to approach both projects in the most effective way.

I'll be off on maternity leave until September, but I'm looking forward to doing some reading and trying to nail down my thesis plan (I have gone through some iterations already, but am not quite there yet as it turns out). I like knowing that everything I can get done (and feel like getting done) is a bonus, and that I don't have to put myself under a lot of pressure. After all, I want to make sure I enjoy my time with Molly!

I'll be teaching my mini-course (Computer Science and Games: Just for Girls!) for the fifth year. It's only a week long, but that will probably be the first time I'll be away from Molly for so long, so that will be interesting. I'm also considering putting together a programming course for Girl Develop It Ottawa using Processing, which would be fun to teach in the summer.

And perhaps most exciting of all, I'm trying to make attending Grace Hopper 2012 in Baltimore with Andrew and Molly a possibility. It's only a 9 hour drive from home, and if I can get my trip funded, the only cost would be Andrew's conference fee and food (and maybe we can even get him in as a volunteer?). I've wanted Andrew to attend for years now both for the technical content and to get to see into my world of women in computing. As an added bonus, the conference offers free daycare!

Welcome Molly, Future Girl Geek!

2011-12-22T12:29:00.000-05:00

Andrew and I are delighted to announce the birth of our first child, Molly! She was born on December 16 at 5:47pm and weighed 7 lbs 3 oz. We're all doing well and enjoying our time together as a new family.

Digital Media - New Learners of the 21st Century

2011-12-15T14:10:00.000-05:00

PBS aired this program back in February this year. It is almost an hour long and features many of the big names in 21st century learning, including James Paul Gee and Katie Salen. If you're interested in game-based education, educational games, and digital media for learning in general, it's a good watch. I quite enjoyed it. (Note: It looks like you can't watch the whole thing in the embedded video, so if you have an hour, head to the full link.)

Watch Full Show on PBS. See more from Digital Media - New Learners Of The 21st Century.

Kudos to the New RCMP Commissioner

2011-12-09T11:27:00.001-05:00

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, our federal police force, recently had its 23rd commissioner formally installed. There have been problems with the previous commissioners, but from what I'm hearing so far from Bob Paulson, things are looking up.

RCMP by focusedcapture

Paulson's take on women deserves kudos. While the organization has nearly 38% of its ranks as women, not many are in the upper ranks. In one article on TheSpec, he is quoted as saying:

“My view is, we bring more women into our decision-making process at the executive level; we have a much more representative decision-making body in the force.”

But he doesn't want to boost the numbers for the sake of equality. As a CTV article reports:

"I recognize that most of our women are concerned that this increase in numbers in the senior ranks will be a measure that is just adding numbers," he said.

"I want to make sure that those employees and members that merit promotion get the promotion. I don't want people to think that we're moving women into the senior ranks just because we need more women."

It seems that Paulson believes that there are many women who deserve to be in the higher ranks but are being overlooked.

Sounds an awful lot like what we need in tech companies and academic institutions, doesn't it?

About to Get Nutty Around Here

2011-12-07T13:58:00.001-05:00

Things are about to get really nutty, and I expect I won't be able to post to the blog too much in the next 6-8 weeks (though I will still try to get some content here!). So here's a quick update to keep you going.

I've been trying to get as much done for school as possible before baby arrives, but there have been a few factors making this difficult. The main thing is that baby is still in breech position, meaning its head is up instead of down where it should be. Traditionally, this has meant an automatic c-section, which is something I desperately don't want for a number of complex reasons I can't fully articulate here. Fortunately, safe, regular breech deliveries are starting to come back into fashion, and there is a chance that if baby doesn't turn in time I could still avoid the surgery.

But, of course, the best outcome of all would be to get baby to turn and not have to make the tough decision on what to do when labour hits. We've been trying a few things, from the Webster technique to various inversions. We even had an ECV yesterday, where the doctor tries to manually turn the baby from the outside. That was unsuccessful, but we are planning to try again next week and continuing doing everything we can, no matter how silly it seems.

So that's going to be consuming my attention for the next little while. I will still try to be optimistic about getting more done for school, but there may be a point I have to just throw in the towel. I'd be disappointed, but ok with this. You can only do what you can do, right?

Who Knew Science and Dance Could Be So Closely Related?

2011-12-02T10:39:00.001-05:00

So often we think of the arts and science as opposites. Many who are talented in one feel hopelessly lost in the other. But the two are more related than it might seem, sometimes in the most unexpected ways...

Take last year's Dance Your PhD contest winners from the chemistry department of my own school, Carleton University. Their dance explains a technique called Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment (SELEX).

(Video link)

Or how about the series of videos that explain how sorting algorithms work? I've used these with great effect in my own introductory CS courses, and recall showing it during a TA workshop I attended, where some participants suddenly understood how quick sort worked as a result.

(Video link)

John Bohannon is the man behind the aforementioned Dance Your PhD contest. He recently gave a talk at TEDxBrussels with a modest proposal. He thinks that "bad PowerPoint presentations are a serious threat against the global economy." (A man after my own heart!) Instead of sitting around and wasting time being distracted by pretty pictures and too much data, we should use dance to explain challenging topics and issues.

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(Video link)

I think dance is just the start. Art and science are both important and they could be connected in so many meaningful ways. Let's get our thinking and creative caps on and see what we can come up with.

Gamifying College

2011-11-29T10:42:00.001-05:00

Gamification is certainly a hot topic these days. Jesse Schell opened Pandora's Box with his Visions of the Gamepocalypse talk. Sebastian Deterding discussed the promises and pitfalls of gamification. Ian Bogost came right out and said that Gamification is Bullshit. And yet, there are many who believe that gamifying education could be a very good thing.

Take Extra Credits (now hosted on Penny Arcade) and their view of how we might gamify education. They envision rewards systems that count up from zero rather than down from a perfect grade. Perhaps the most interesting example of gamifying education so far, though, has been the charter school Quest 2 Learn. I was skeptical of how well the concept would be implemented at first, but the more I learn about it the more impressed and excited I am.

Enter the latest project I've encountered: Just Press Play. I first learned about this initiative on the Microsoft Research Connections Blog (via Reddit, of all places), where Donald Brinkman posted an article called Unlocking Academic Success with Frame Games for Learning. As he describes the project:

It began with a simple question: “Why can’t students earn digital rewards for being awesome?” A research group comprised of university faculty, staff, and students at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) decided to find out. The team delved into the everyday travails of college life—from academia to social activities—and developed a real-world game, Just Press Play, which helps students earn a digital reward for the ultimate achievement: collegiate success.

(Video link)

Again, at first glance, it's easy to worry that this is just another one of those gimmicky projects doomed to failure. But to be honest, I don't think this is going to be the case. Check out the slides for a presentation made at the 2011 Games in Education conference about the project (be sure to click on the Speaker Notes tab under the slides). There are definitely hints in there that suggest a lot more thought has gone into this project than what a typical marketing team has probably done for their commercial gamification projects. For instance, it's clear they recognize that intrinsic rewards are much more sustainable than extrinsic ones, and want to harness that.

This is something I'm definitely going to watch. I like the fact that it's for college students rather than the usual K-12 audience and am intrigued to see how much more the students engage with all aspects of college life.

Event Idea: The Truth About Women in Science and Engineering

2011-11-18T10:00:00.000-05:00

I recently came up with what I thought was interesting event idea. Our Dean of Engineering had expressed some interest in CU-WISE coming up with an idea for a recruitment event that would attract the media and encourage high school girls to consider choosing Carleton in their upcoming university applications. I haven't heard back from the Dean so I am not sure if this event will happen, but I thought I'd share the idea in case it helped any of you come up with your own.

The Truth About Women in Science and Engineering

The proposed premise is to be honest about what it’s like to be a woman in science or engineering. This begins as something that comes across as negative as we share the common challenges faced by students and others, but the idea is to show how a group like CU-WISE and all the other awesome things that Carleton does turns this all around.It is a risk to do anything negative at all (and it needs to be approached in just the right way), but there are two good reasons for this approach:

It will build trust in the students we want to reach as well as their parents. All schools are trying to sell themselves as a product, but how many are willing to be honest about the situation? It’s the elephant in the room, and our audience should appreciate our ability to discuss it in the open.
To attract the media, your approach has to be different. Sure, maybe you’d get a bit of air time for the usual outreach events, but they tend to be fairly similar to each other. Being willing to talk about these issues is not something that’s very common.

The proposed event would be a dessert reception held on the afternoon of a weekend. The reason for this is that a dinner would not only be more expensive, but require longer periods of sitting in one place (it will become clear why this isn’t desirable shortly). Choosing an afternoon on a weekend makes it easier for students and parents to attend since families need to get home from work and eat dinner before attending an event like this during the week. The great participation numbers at Go Eng Girl (held on a Saturday) proves that weekend events can be successful.

The dessert reception should include something to please both the parents (who are big influencers to their children’s choices) and the students. Offering beer and wine, if affordable, shows we are thinking of the former, and having cupcakes, cake pops, and milkshakes or smoothies for the girls should thrill the latter.

The main format of the event would be to have a short talk at the beginning to discuss the challenges faced by women in science and engineering and how CU-WISE and other Carleton initiatives help. This would be followed by a structured networking opportunity where parents and students would speak with current students, alumni, and faculty. Finally, hands-on demo and other info booths would be available during the last segment, when casual networking would take place. Dessert could be served in both of the last two segments or just at the end.

Possible Agenda

Time	Item	Reasoning
20 minutes	Talk: The Truth About Women in Science and Engineering (One or two guest speakers, depending on whether it will be joint between Engineering and Science)	As explained earlier, this is an opportunity to talk about the elephant in the room and build trust with both the parents and the students. It is also an opportunity to showcase how CU-WISE helps by providing a support network and other great initiatives to Carleton students so they know they can expect to be able to overcome the challenges at Carleton.
40 minutes	Structured Networking: We will have a set of current female students, alumni, and faculty available to participate. There will be at least one person from each of these groups at each numbered table. They will see three different groups of parents and students and will be asked to talk about their experiences at Carleton, including challenges they faced and how they overcame them. Each student/parent pair will draw three table numbers from separate bins, set up so that they get one table assigned to a current student, another to an alumnus, and another to a faculty member. In each of the ten minutes, the student/parent pair will sit at their assigned table and have a discussion with the student/alumnus/faculty assigned to that table. This will repeat twice so each pair talks to each type of person assigned to the tables. Ten minutes in the schedule is allotted for time taken switching tables, etc.	Students appreciate the opportunity to see what life is like for current students, what kinds of jobs they can expect if they get through the program, and who will be teaching them. This makes coming to university much less intimidating, and if they find themselves connecting with any of these people, they are more likely to remember Carleton favourably as a place they could see themselves studying at. If possible, we may even be able to ask participants to tell us what programs they are applying for, and pre-match the tables they visit so they are able to speak to at least some people from that program or, at least, faculty.
60 minutes	Demo and Info Booths Demo booths should provide an opportunity to touch and try things as well as listen to someone from Carleton talk about the demo itself and how it relates to the kinds of things you study at Carleton. Potential demos might include robotics, satellites, brain dissection, interesting interfaces from HCI students, water filtration, etc. Info booths - such as one from Athletics - are important to emphasize the kind of balance you can have when you are a student at Carleton, and can show what other services are there to support students.	Besides the usual reasons for having hands-on demos (engagement, etc), they implicitly show the success of women at Carleton. This continues to follow the theme on the Truth of Women in Science and Engineering in that we see what awesome things women here are really doing.

She Topped All the Men in Math and Kept Her Life in Balance

2011-11-15T15:35:00.001-05:00

In an age where to be female was to be weak, there was one woman who would finally show the world that the fairer sex could beat the very best men academically, even in something so male dominated as mathematics. And she did it while still maintaining a rather balanced lifestyle.

Public domain image obtained from Wikipedia.

Philippa Fawcett did the unimaginable: she beat every other man and woman who competed in the prestigious mathematical examinations held at Cambridge University. This was in 1890, a time long before men and women were even allowed to study for degrees side by side. Even the science of the time suggested that this probably couldn't happen:

Central to the 19th-century concept of human development was the idea that the adolescent body was a closed system; there was only so much energy available, and so a body in which resources were diverted to mental development was one in which physical development necessarily suffered. This was thought to be a particular problem for women, because their reproductive system was far more complicated than men’s and so consumed a greater proportion of the body’s resources. A young woman who studied hard during puberty was believed to be taking special risks since “the brain and ovary could not develop at the same time,” as historian Judith Walzer Leavitt points out.

The story of her triumph was detailed over at the Smithsonian blog and is worth the read on its own. However, I happened to notice one very interesting aspect of the tale that has been rather relevant to me in the last couple of days: the fact that, unlike many of the previous male champions, Phillipa maintained a very good life balance while studying for the exams.

Just look at what the boys went through to become the top scorers, known as Wranglers:

The most serious candidates invariably hired tutors and worked more or less round the clock for months. The historian Alex Craik notes that C.T. Simpson, who ranked as Second Wrangler in 1841, topped off his efforts by studying for 20 hours a day in the week before the exams and “almost broke down from over-exertion… [he] found himself actually obliged to carry a supply of ether and other stimulants into the examinations in case of accidents.” James Wilson, who topped the rankings in 1859, had a nervous breakdown immediately after his exams; on his recovery he discovered he had forgotten all the math he ever knew except elementary algebra. And James Savage worked himself so hard that he was found dead of apoplexy in a ditch three months after being named Senior Wrangler of 1855.

In contrast, Phillipa "led 'a disciplined and orderly life,' rising at 8 a.m. and rarely going to bed later than 11 p.m. She studied six hours a day, but refused to yield to the then-popular practice among aspirant Wranglers of working through the night with a wet towel wrapped around her head."

Just yesterday I finally read a time management article that had been making the rounds. Phillipa's routine reminded me of the advice in that article. As someone who also strives for a regular working day (and sometimes feeling guilty about it!), I am glad to see how others are able to achieve success with similar working hours. Definitely check out the article:

Time management: How an MIT postdoc writes 3 books, a PhD defense, and 6+ peer-reviewed papers — and finishes by 5:30pm

Do you have any time management secrets or have you read any other great articles on the subject?

Enjoying Grace Hopper 2011 From Afar

2011-11-11T14:50:00.001-05:00

I've attended the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC) every year since 2008, gradually increasing my participation from blogging to being on a conference committee. This year I had to miss out because I am past my flight cut-off for my pregnancy. For a long time I was so busy trying to get stuff done for school before I start my leave in January that I didn't even think about it, but once the conference got started this week I felt very sad to be missing out.

Fortunately, the very thing that I have worked so hard to make awesome when attending GHC in the past is allowing me to enjoy this year's edition from afar: the online communities.

I have a whole new appreciation for the many awesome posts on attendees' blogs and Twitter accounts. While seeing conversations between all the people I am missing out on meeting up with makes me feel sad, I also find myself vibrating with excitement with all the amazing things happening in Portland. From the wonderful keynote speakers to the fantastic panels to the neat e-textile workshop, this conference must be the best one yet.

If you'd like to enjoy GHC from afar as well, be sure to check out the relevant posts on these blogs (many of which are also aggregated on the conference website):

GHC Bloggers
Thoughts on security, beer, theatre, and biking! (Valerie Fenwick)
The Geek Movement (Karen Tanenbaum)
PhDoula
Kathleen Tsoukalas
terriko (Terri Oda)
Speak HCI (Keita Del Valle)

To follow posts on Twitter, search for the #ghc11 hash tag.

To read notes taken during specific conference sessions (and find links to associated blog posts), have a look at the official GHC wiki.

And, finally, be sure to watch the keynote video of Sheryl Sandberg (COO of Facebook), already available online! (The other keynotes will find their way online eventually as well, so stay tuned to the Grace Hopper and ABI news feeds.)

Hopefully I'll see you all at GHC 2012 in Baltimore next October with baby — and with any luck, husband — along for the ride!

Code Blocked

2011-11-08T10:42:00.001-05:00

I love coding. Once I get started, I get lost in the groove very easily. I love thinking about the best way to organize objects and design my UI. It feels good to find elegant ways to solve problems. So the fact that I haven't done a lot of programming lately really frustrates me.

IMG_4407 by DanBengal

If I was working in industry right now, I'd be coding every day. The nature of my current projects in grad school require a lot of preliminary non-coding work (especially reading). But it would be wrong to blame grad school for my lack of coding.

In fact, there seem to be two larger problems at play here. First, I have a hard time wanting to do much of anything work related in the evenings. This is partly because my husband and I value balance in our lives, like to cook real food for dinner and keep the house in good working order (easier said than done when you own a 130+ year old place in the country). My poor eyesight and need to wear hard contacts may also play a factor, making my eyes too tired to focus on a screen all evening.

But perhaps more frustrating is the second problem. The amount of momentum I need to break the code block barrier has grown to be fairly immense. I don't know why this is. Once I get started I can't stop, but it seems really, really hard to make the first move. To open Xcode or or Eclipse or Visual Studio and just start coding. It may be related to my dislike of doing something for only a short period of time before having to put it away again (probably the same reason I still haven't finished playing the first Portal). I'm not sure.

I have more than one project that I've very nearly finished. I could easily be tinkering away on these projects when I need a break from reading or during a quiet evening at home. I want to break this code block and be consistently programming throughout each semester. How?

Two Months Before Mommyhood

2011-11-06T15:20:00.000-05:00

It's hard to believe that our baby's due date is less than 8 weeks away. It's even harder to believe I've written so little about it here! What with trying to get as much done as I can before going on leave after Christmas, I haven't really thought that much about the whole baby thing.

«I love you, mom!» by Tambako the Jaguar

Nonetheless, there are still some things I've been looking forward to and others that I have been worried about. Thought I'd share a few here.

Things I'm Worried About

Will I finish everything I want to get done before I go on leave?!
My eyes have problems that require me to wear hard contacts (can't see any other way, even with glasses). I worry about not being to see when I have to get up in the night for baby. It's also potentially unfortunate that I wouldn't be able to mess around on my phone or read a magazine when I have to get up for longer periods of time (or will I be too tired to do that anyway?).
How long will it be before I am able to get back to doing useful things? I'd like to at least continue with reading books and papers related to my thesis after the first couple of months. If I'm really lucky, I'd like to ramp things up a little bit in my second four months of leave (fingers crossed for a "good" baby!).
Once I'm back from leave, what is life going to be like? Am I going to be able to graduate in a reasonable amount of time, and for a reasonable amount of money as scholarships and funding start to run out?

Things I'm Looking Forward To

Having a cute little baby to love and cuddle, obviously. ;)
I'm really excited to eventually make use of the really cool educational technology that's starting to come out these days. It'll be a while, but I'm looking forward to introducing my kid to things like Project Columbia, which melds Kinect and Sesame Street together. I hope I can eventually make some of my own apps that my kid can enjoy, too.
I'm also already wondering at what age I can teach my kid to program with Scratch.
We already try to lead a pretty balanced life (sometimes I feel bad about not being as hard-core as I used to be in undergrad). I'm looking forward to having a quality family life at home, enjoying everything from Christmas to everyday life that much more.

Course Blogs vs Wikis

2011-11-02T14:01:00.000-04:00

If you're a professor or TA for a course and want to use online technology for the betterment of your students, which is superior: a course wiki or a course blog? I've been using the latter for the course I'm TA'ing this term, but think the real answer depends on exactly what you hope to get out of it.

WIKI by kbaird

The blog I've been running this term is for the third year graphics course offered to the game development stream students. One of the reasons I started it is that the only other ways to communicate with students would be to ask the professor to post things to his course website (which would limit me in what I could actually say), or to hope that students actually checked WebCT once in a while (computer science students don't much like WebCT).

Some of the things I post about include:

Updates on my progress grading various assignments and tests.
General summarized feedback on assignments.
Numbered comments for tests that I can refer to when marking so I don't have to write the same explanations over and over again on paper.
Detailed explanations of topics students seem to be struggling with.
Links to applets on fundamental topics I've made in the past that might help students.
Links to other resources that might be helpful.

So far the blog has been very much a one-way form of communication, even though students could be posting questions or comments on the posts if they wanted to. It's not totally clear how many students look at the blog, but I do know that those who come see me for help use it.

A course wiki would look a lot different from the blog. For instance, instead of a stream of posts that capture what happened during a particular term chronologically, a wiki would likely end up being a more structured documentation of the course that could evolve over time. It is more of a living document that students, TA's, and professors could contribute to. It might even be able to combine the ideas of the traditional course webpage with some of what I put on my blog (some of the resources on my blog might be better suited to a wiki). A wiki might be more difficult to use as a form of feedback to students in a particular term since it's not as obvious when new content is posted.

So, if choosing between a wiki or a blog, I would consider whether I want to develop a resource that will evolve each time the course is taught (wiki), or if communication and feedback to students is my priority (blog). I don't think one is superior to the other, and the ambitious might even be able to effectively offer both.

Have you used either for your own course? What type of content did you include, and how successful was your approach?

Help Wanted: Examples of Nonlinear Stories and Less Successful AR Projects

2011-10-27T14:13:00.000-04:00

I'm working on two projects where I need to come up with as long a list of examples as I can. I've got some in mind, but what better way to make sure I don't miss the important ones than to ask all of you for your ideas? I hope you'll share your thoughts. Yay, crowd sourcing! :)

Crowd Sourcing by riacale

Nonlinear Stories in Traditional Media

The first set of examples I'm working on is a list of movies and books that have nonlinear plots. I'm not necessarily talking about interactive stories here; instead, I want to know about any story that presents itself in a non-chronological order of some kind. For instance, the plot in Memento is shown in reverse order, and events are told by various narrators in Hero.

In addition to the actual example, it would be great to hear your thoughts on how the creators have explained the use of a nonlinear plot in the context of their stories, or what technique they used to present it. In Memento, the backwards plot fits in with the brain damage of the main character, and in Hero the technique is the use of different framing devices (in this case, an unreliable narrator).

This list is going to be used in thinking about nonlinear narrative in games. I will let you know more closer to the end of the term.

Less Successful Augmented Reality Projects

Do you know of an augmented reality project from academia or industry that seemed really good but never really caught on to be a big success? Or a project that wasn't actually very good in the first place? This includes projects that have been important in terms of the technology they have moved forward, but that didn't seem to have a lasting use to real people, as well as commercial flops.

I'm going to be using these examples in a discussion of how less successful augmented reality projects could be improved. It's related to my work on using cognitive theories to uncover the value of AR. The current version of our paper is probably going to a journal or magazine, and I am very much looking forward to sharing it with you all - hopefully soon!

Computer Science is Everywhere! (Even Photography)

2011-10-24T11:15:00.000-04:00

Last week I did a couple of workshops at the Canadian Museum of Science and Technology for National Science and Technology Week. I managed to improve the usual 'computer science connects to everything' theme to be more interactive, and judging by the apparent engagement of the students, it was a success. Below is an outline of what I presented - feel free to adapt it for your own presentation (with some credit to me if you don't mind).

I'm here from Carleton University to tell you about one of the biggest reasons that I love computer science: it connects to everything! No matter what your interests are, or your passions, there is a problem waiting to be solved and a way to make life easier or better with computing. Even something as creative as photography has a lot to do with computer science, as we'll see later.

My name is Gail Carmichael, and I'm a computer scientist. Of course, that's not all I am. I'm also a PhD student (which means I've been in school for almost ten years since high school!). I do Taekwondo (anyone else into martial arts?) and like to go backpack hiking and work on my garden. And, as you can see, I'm also going to be a mom soon!

(I always make an effort to show the students that just because you are into computers doesn't mean you can't also be into lots of other fun things as well. This time I was also able to talk about becoming a mom, which I think it really important for both the males and females to see. In fact, one of the boys came up to me after the workshop to wish me luck with the baby - how awesome is that??)

I'm also part of a group at Carleton called Women in Science and Engineering. In fact, I helped start this group a few years ago. I don't know if you all know, but we still have far too few women in computer science, and we want to fix that. So, ladies in the audience, I encourage you to look into computer science as a possible career if you see anything today that interests you! (Guys, too - we want all the smart people!)

Ok, so let's talk about computer science. Anyone have any ideas of what computer science might be? Or maybe what kinds of things computer scientists do?

(You usually get answers more related to using computers, but you can also often get some good insight into what the field's really about.)

I'll tell you exactly was computer science is about in one second. But first, I want you to all take a minute to brainstorm as long a list as you can of areas of your life where computing is involved. Think of the obvious, like cell phones, to the less obvious, like toasters (yup, even your toaster might have a little computer inside!).

Here are some of the areas I thought of. Some of these are more obvious, like the iPhone and video games. What about some of the others?

(I find the students love giving more ideas on these topics or asking questions about them. Invite interaction here as much as possible.)

Music: You could write software that analyzes music and automatically creates a playing list that would suit our current mood. Or you can try to teach the computer how to create good music from scratch.
Medicine: You can use computers to simulate chemical reactions and help us narrow down what sorts of things might be effective in treating particular illnesses. You can also use computers to crunch the huge amounts of data in our DNA, helping us find genetic issues in a person. (Bet you didn't think you'd be able to save lives as a computer scientist, did you?)
Video Games: Sometimes we want to provide good entertainment as computer scientists, and making games is one way to do this. You can even study game development as a whole concentration in our computer science program at Carleton!
Geography: When's the last time you used Google Maps or a GPS device? There's a lot of computer science happening there, such as when you are finding the most efficient route to your destination.
Psychology: If you're interested in the way people think, you can help design technology that makes sense to humans.
Math: Computer science can be a very mathematical way of thinking. (But don't worry, you don't have to be a math whiz to do well in this field!)
Robotics: We have to program robots to get around without running into things and much more.
Education: I want to make games that are both fun and educational. School looks very similar to what our great-great-grandparents experienced, but I think that technology can help change that and make learning more fun and effective!

In the end, computer science is really all about solving problems. It's not about programming or software or any of that stuff on its own - these are all just means to the end of making the world better.

(Try to relate the students' answers from earlier into the above discussion.)

What problems are there to solve in photography? How can we improve such a creative practice with technology?

Some of you might remember taking photos with film before digital cameras became standard. Film worked by having an actual chemical reaction to the light that hits it. How do we take a picture digitally?

(If there's time, it's fun to get them guessing how we get from a scene in the world to an image on the computer.)

Instead of using chemicals that react to light, we can create what's called a digital sensor that can sense what light is hitting it. But how does this translate into what the computer can understand?

Do you know how data on your computer is stored? What everything ends up being in the end? (Answer: numbers! Binary numbers in particular.) Even an image is going to end up as numbers. So we need to translate the light hitting the sensor into numbers somehow.

Let's say I took this photo with my digital camera and I'm looking at it on the computer. What happens if I zoom in really close? (Answer: it gets pixelated, blocky, blurry, etc.)

Our digital sensors are made of grids of pixels as well, and each of these pixels captures the amount of light that hits it. Then we can store this as a number for each pixel on the computer, representing the image.

(At this point, I use images from the CS Unplugged Image Representation activity to demonstrate how this can work with black and white images, and I give them some time to try recreating the pictures on the handout on pg 4 of the PDF. We discuss the pros and cons of the two ways of representing the image - each pixel as its own number or writing out the number of black or white pixels that come in a row - and I emphasize that we often have to consider tradeoffs when solving problems in computer science.)

To conclude, let me say again that computer science is everywhere. In photography, there are many more problems that computer science helps solve, from organizing and searching through our photos to applying interesting effects to them. Computing touches every part of our lives, from keeping us healthy to keeping us entertained.

What if you want a PhD but don't plan to do research after?

2011-10-19T10:43:00.000-04:00

I was thinking the other day about the different reasons a person might want to get a PhD, and I wondered if those who weren't necessarily intending to be researchers when they were done would be valued as highly during their grad school years as those who did.

Academic by tim ellis

I suppose the most common reason to get a PhD is because you want to do research, either as a professor in an academic setting or at a research lab (industry or otherwise). After all, this is what the actual PhD work teaches you more than anything else: how to do research. Sure, there are opportunities to improve and practice your teaching as well, but it's certainly not required. Some people don't even want to be TA's because of the time it takes away from their main task.

But is it not also perfectly legitimate to get a PhD because you simply want to learn more about something? To have the opportunity for academic and other experiences that you'd never have otherwise? Or maybe you want to work on a particular problem not because you love the world of research in and of itself, but because that problem is something you are passionate about solving.

Perhaps you want to just teach when you are done. Sure, you might not need more than a Masters to do that in a university setting, but the reasons above may be enough to take it that step further. Or maybe you want to continue working on solving that problem you started working on as a business venture or within another company. Maybe you see the solution as something that can make the world a better place.

Are students whose primary post-grad goals do not include research less valued during their PhD, assuming they have fairly good (but not top) research ability combined with other excellent qualities (such as leadership, etc)? Do they get less scholarships and recognition? Do they suffer more because of the Publish or Perish mantra?

I don't know the answers, but while I would like to think this wouldn't be the case I suspect that it could easily be. Does it matter? What are your thoughts?

'Publish or Perish' Should Perish

2011-10-14T15:09:00.000-04:00

I hate the 'publish or perish' mantra of academia. I really do. To me, it takes the focus away from doing great work and waiting until it's truly ready for public consumption and instead stresses us out as we try to ensure our publication record is up to snuff.

P is for Produce, "Piled Higher and Deeper" by Jorge Chamwww.phdcomics.com

I particularly dislike the mantra these days because it's so easy to document what we're up to online. If committees for scholarships, tenure, etc want to see whether we are doing good research, they could in theory find out in other ways, for example from our discussions, blogs, websites, and more online (assuming of course that we researchers got better at taking advantage of such media). The full process, including the failures, could be captured. Granted, it's not as official as a peer reviewed paper and false information could be spread, but in some ways it's a more full and genuine glimpse into someone's research ability, while the published papers come to represent the most polished work possible. Perhaps if we wanted this to become a standard, we could find ways to ensure the information available outside of published work is useful and trustworthy.

I certainly hear of many others who dislike the current way of things as well. But, as they point out, it's the way you have to play the game in academia. True, but is generating knowledge for the purpose of playing the game really going to result in the best outcome? And is the length of someone's publication list really a good indication of the value they are bringing to the world?

I'd love to see a fundamental shift in our thinking when it comes to publishing. I do believe that the process of peer review and the ability to share the outcome of our research is important, but I wish the emphasis was more on high quality results than the insatiable need to just get something out there.

Do you feel the same way? How would you change the system if you could change anything?

Research Plan: The Role of Story in Educational Games

2011-10-12T17:33:00.002-04:00

I've (finally!) been working on a concrete thesis research plan and wanted to share a general idea of what I'm intending to do. The short version is that I want to experimentally determine how different types of stories actually affect learning outcome in educational games, and make it easier for others to incorporate story into future games.

Stray Souls Dollhouse Story game screenshot by GamesPlayer

These are the main questions I'm hoping to answer in three phases:

As shown through experimentation, does the use of story in educational games offer
players an opportunity for deep learning beyond simply providing motivation or engagement?
Does the use of nonlinear narrative or interactive storytelling improve engagement and/or learning?
How can narrative best be incorporated into educational games? What set of metrics could
be developed to help game designers ensure that they are able to effectively tie together their story, educational content, and gameplay mechanics?
Using this knowledge, what would a tool to support the authoring of stories for educational games look like?

The idea is to first choose a set of games with which to conduct experiments that test learning outcome. Some of these games will be already established works with clear learning objectives and stories that can be removed without severely affecting the educational content. We will also use some of our own designs. The selection of games will be made with the second research question in mind; that is, we wish to ﬁnd games that use both linear and nonlinear storytelling techniques. The results of these experiments will heavily influence the rest of the research.

In the second phase the set of metrics mentioned in the third research question will be developed. Established games and games of our own design will be used to iterate on the metrics until a reasonable set can be settled on.

Finally, the third phase involves writing a tool that will both help enhance an author's creativity when writing stories for educational games and help ensure the story is consistent with the educational content. How it will look depends, of course, on the results of the first two phases, but I am imagining using some AI techniques to help check consistency and make story suggestions. There may also be an opportunity to use some graph analysis, for example to take advantage of connections between content topics present on sites like Wikipedia.

One of the coolest things that's happening with respect to this plan is hearing excitement from writers who want to be able to write better interactive stories for educational games. I'm thrilled to have people I can speak with directly to ensure that what I do ends up being useful, and I may even have some professional writing help when designing our own games for our experiments. Hopefully it'll be win-win for all of us!

Did reading this raise any red flags to you? Do you have any ideas or suggestions? Please leave a comment and let me know! The more feedback, the better.

Ada Lovelace Day: Natalia

2011-10-07T18:42:00.002-04:00

I participate in Ada Lovelace Day every year by blogging about my tech heroines. This year, I had a really hard time deciding who to honour because there are so many worthy candidates! After some thought about what stage of life I'm at and what's happening today for her, I finally settled on Natalia Villanueva-Rosales.

Natalia just defended her computer science PhD thesis earlier today at Carleton. As far as I can tell by her Facebook status, it went well! I'm so proud of this accomplishment, not only because getting your PhD is totally awesome in itself, but because of the twists and turns in the journey she took to get there.

You see, in addition to a grad student, she's also now a mom. Her adorable little guy is now more than a year old, but getting him into this world sure wasn't easy. Her pregnancy was complicated, and to make sure her son could be born healthy and happy, she had to unexpectedly delay her studies for quite some time. It was a difficult decision that not everyone understood, but she knew what was important to her; the PhD would come later.

I admire this so much. It's hard for me to know what it took to put aside everything for your baby because I've been fortunate enough so have an easy pregnancy so far. But if that ever changes, or if (perhaps when) I find myself struggling to keep up with motherhood after my baby is born, I'll be able to look to Natalia and know that it's possible. I'll know that you can be a mom and get your PhD, too.

Thanks Natalia, and know we're all proud of you today!!

Notes on 'Experiencing Stories with/in Digital Games' Colloquium

2011-10-03T14:08:00.001-04:00

You've probably heard it before: we've got a long way to go in finding artful ways to meld great storytelling with the traditional mechanics of digital games. Being a computer scientist, I usually see the attempts of improving the state of the art from the technical perspective, but this past weekend I got to learn more about what the humanities researchers in academia and the writers, artists, and designers from industry have been doing at the Experiencing Stories with/in Digital Games colloquium held in Montreal.

Screenshot from The Graveyard, one of the indie games discussed by panellists.

Saturday's events were open to the public and consisted of four panels, each focusing on a different game, followed by a keynote by David Cage, creator of Heavy Rain. On each panel, two academics presented their work surrounding analysis of the game from a range of perspectives, from utopias to infinitude to fear as the story. Then the academics and someone who worked on each game got a chance to discuss the work presented or the game in general, followed by audience Q&A.

Personally, I found the industry perspective the most interesting. This has to do, in part, by the style of the presentations made by the academics. Apparently the norm for this field is to read an elaborate prose (with no apparent pauses for a chance to digest) during a presentation. While the words they were speaking sounded like they would be a pleasure to read on my own, there was no way I could possibly keep up with the complexity as they read them aloud. It seem that computer scientists are not the only ones who don't understand that written and oral forms of communication are not at all the same thing.

In any case, I took live notes as best I could during the talks (please excuse any poor spelling and grammar!) and have made them available online for you to check out. Despite not immediately understanding a lot of what I heard during the day, I could tell there were some really interesting topics to think about further.

Read the live notes from Saturday's panel

David Cage's keynote was quite well done. He certainly missed the opportunity to discuss what was wrong with Heavy Rain and only focused on what he thought was good, but his overall introduction to the world of interactive storytelling was well crafted and enjoyable. Whether you agree with his philosophy or not, he did offer much to mull over.

On Sunday, a set of round table discussions were held so that students could discuss their work with feedback from the presenters of the previous day. After lunch, we all sat in a circle and had a general open discussion about storytelling in games. I found this part of the event to be incredibly valuable for both what I'm working on and for thinking about story in games in general. In particular I got some amazing feedback and new ideas about my taxonomy of techniques in non-linear fiction (which I'm now thinking of changing to a set of spectra on storytelling thanks to all the new ways I have to look at the topic).

Attending this event has really made me feel good about choosing story and educational games as my main research area, and I'm feeling really energized to dive into this field even deeper. And who knows... maybe I'll be able to play a small role in bringing us closer to that elusive goal of having great stories and great games be one and the same.

Vulnerability in Teaching

2011-09-30T10:52:00.000-04:00

The status quo in university lecturing is comfortable. You capture what you know on a set of slides (often using many words - kind of a brain dump, really), and tell students that 'this is the way it is' during class. You normally don't have to open yourself up to potentially embarrassing situations where you realize you don't actually know some of the details you thought you did. This is especially useful the first time you teach a topic and/or when it's not your area of expertise.

But I'm just not into the status quo. Alas, I also felt a little embarrassed during my last class.

Buster is ashamed by Bklynraised

I filled in yesterday for the prof I'm TA'ing for. The class is a third year course on 3D computer graphics for the game development students. I decided to make my own slides and build up a really good understanding of how camera viewing worked by going from the canonical view volume to orthographic projection, and from arbitrary view points to transforming a perspective projection into an orthographic projection. This is the approach shown in Fundamentals of Computer Graphics by Peter Shirley, and as an added bonus, the author provides the book's diagrams for free on his website.

(If you're curious, you can check out the slides for my lecture in PowerPoint format - be sure to look at the notes section of the file since that's where the explanations are. I don't like putting lots of words up while I talk.)

The class was going well. I had a few places I wanted the students to try something out for themselves because it's all too easy to look at the numbers on the slide and just accept them as seeming reasonable. I know, because I do that all the time, either in talks or when reading. Even if they couldn't figure out what I was asking them to do, the act of trying would force them to really think about what I just showed them.

At one point, however, I asked them to do something that I hadn't had a chance to do myself. (I didn't find out what I would be lecturing on until fairly last minute and, unfortunately, made my slides the day of the class.) I had done exactly what I was trying to help them avoid: I took for granted what the book was saying and didn't realize that I never tried to understand the details. Not until a specific question came up, that is.

Although I readily admit when I don't know something, I did even more this time: I tried to logically figure it out in front of the class. Dangerous! Especially dangerous because I'm generally not that good at figuring stuff out in front of others. Well, as expected, that didn't go so well. So I said that for some reason my brain appears to be incapable to sorting this out at the moment, but if anyone in the class thought they could see it more clearly, they could try to explain.

A couple of students actually did! I really commend them because as I later confirmed, they were basically right. They are going to understand this topic so much deeper now than they would have if I had just shown them the answer and moved on rather than tried to understand it with them.

Granted, I probably wasted a bit more time on figuring this particular thing out than I should have, leaving some students bored. I suppose finding the right balance comes with experience. This was a small class, making it more reasonable to have spent some time on it, but I don't think it would have made sense to do it in, say, a huge auditorium.

In any case, I promised that I would post a clear explanation on the blog once I had a chance to think about it on my own. I followed through with a post within a couple of hours of class ending since, just as I expected, the answer was clear and obvious once I could think about it away from staring eyes. (Hopefully I got it right - if anyone notices any issues let me know!)

All in all, despite the fact that it was easy to feel embarrassed from my fumbling around, I conclude that it was worth it. Putting yourself out there is uncomfortable, but it generally means that you are going to give students a better learning experience.

Research Snapshot for Fall 2011

2011-09-23T10:56:00.002-04:00

For those of you wondering what the heck I've been up to lately research-wise, wonder no longer! Here's a snapshot of what I've been working on lately and plan to work on before Christmas (when, as you may know, I will be going on maternity leave for a while).

Cognitive Advantages of Augmented Reality

This is something I've been working on for well over a year now. It started in a class I took extra to my degree called Computers and Cognition. For my term project, I looked at a couple of key cognitive theories and how they related to what I thought was so great about augmented reality. Since that class, the prof and my own supervisor have been expanding and refining that work into publishable form.

So far, we've run into some trouble getting our paper accepted to a conference. In our last attempt, we received quite good reviews, but still weren't accepted. Apparently the paper caused much discussion at the conference committee meeting, but in the end they decided that they needed to hold it to a higher standard since it was both new and more on the theoretical side of things. They (and the reviewers for our previous attempt) suggested a journal might be a better venue.

So that's where we are now. We are working on the latest rewrite and will hopefully submit it soon. You can follow the progress of this work on this page if you are so inclined.

Gram's House

I've written about this project a few times on this blog. Originally a project we submitted to Microsoft's Imagine Cup, it has evolved nicely into becoming an international collaboration between industry and academia.

At this point, I have a wonderful team of academics from the States who are on board with applying for a National Science Foundation grant in January to help fund the development and evaluation of this project. Filament Games is interested in professionally developing the game. There are several other academics and CS education community members who are interested in helping evaluate the game with their classes or outreach initiatives.

NSF grants are competitive, so I realize that we may not be successful in our first attempt. Nevertheless, I'm excited that, no matter how long it takes, Gram's House may become the full-fledged game I am dreaming of, allowing it to make a widespread impact in many girls' lives.

You can follow this project here (it has not yet been updated with the latest grant goings-on, but will be once things are more solidified).

Narrative and Educational Games

Finally, a newer thread of research has been related to narrative and interactive storytelling. In an effort to solidify a specific direction for my PhD thesis, I have chosen this thread as my main topic and started outlining a research plan.

Right now, I'm working on putting together a taxonomy of techniques in nonlinear fiction. There is a balance between categorizing approaches by their creative intentions and the technology behind them. In October I am leading a round table discussion on this work with the goal of looking at why games have used certain techniques but not others (is it because it's too difficult creatively or technically, or because we just need someone to try?).

During the rest of this term, I'll be delving into this taxonomy deeper and working on a paper for a game studies/design journal.

As for my thesis, I will be narrowing in on what the role of narrative is in educational games. Does story simply engage a game's learners, or is there something more going on there? What are the best ways to incorporate story effectively into an educational game? Can we create a tool that supports writers and designers in properly crafting stories for these sorts of games? Though I'm keeping it general for now, I'd like to ultimately focus on reality-based educational games (including augmented reality) and make use of the cognitive advantages research mentioned above.

The taxonomy work can be followed here, and future pages on my portfolio will be created as my journey continues.

Jane McGonigal: Reality is Broken

2011-09-21T10:30:00.002-04:00

Jane McGonigal thinks reality is broken. Why else would so many of us escape it to play hours and hours of video games? But among all the media hype about the bad things games supposedly to do us, have you ever considered that games might actually make us better? (I bet readers here are on board with that idea!)

I finally got the chance to read Jane's wonderfully written book Reality is Broken: Why games make us better and how they can change the world. The whole way through I felt excited and inspired. If you've seen Jane's TED Talk, you'll have seen a summary of the main ideas behind this book. However, the twenty minutes she has just doesn't do her ideas justice (it's easy to misunderstand the main point and pass it off as a bit kooky). The book is (obviously) able to explain everything in much more detail, and provides many supporting research results and in-depth examples.

The first part of the book sets up how games make us happy. Jane's take on the four defining traits of a game — goals, rules, feedback systems, and voluntary participation — show up throughout the rest of the book, as do the four intrinsic rewards available to us in games: satisfying work, the experience or hope of being successful, social connection, and meaning in the sense of becoming part of something bigger than ourselves.

Part two suggests that alternate reality games are a good way to use what we love about gaming to make our real lives better. All the themes from the first part are applied again and again here, seemingly to great effect if you look at the success of the games outlined in these chapters. Although it's not quite the same thing, my interest in augmented reality made this section particularly meaningful to me. The work I've been doing lately on the cognitive benefits of AR has some overlap with the ideas here.

Finally, in part three, things get epic. Jane talks about the kinds of things that gamers are well prepared for, like collaborating with huge numbers of people and voluntarily tackling seemingly impossible tasks. She points out that gamers can and do use these abilities to make a difference in the real world, often through reality-based gaming contexts. In a sense, this part is about gamification, but not in the badge-adding way that Ian Bogost often laments about. It's about truly making life more gameful to improve our own lives and the lives of everyone around us.

By the end of the book, I found myself wondering if Jane and James Paul Gee have had a chance to collaborate yet. The latter talks about how we can apply what is good in games to learning and education. I would love to see what these two could come up with together (perhaps along with Ian Bogost, whom Jane mentions is a good friend in the book).

In the meantime, I need to go check up on the Gameful website Jane set up and see how all the others in my areas of interest (education! augmented reality!) are doing. If you are into games for good, you should go sign up, too!

The Hardest Thing I've Ever Done

2011-09-16T13:11:00.000-04:00

On our vacation to Canada's maritime provinces, my husband and I embarked on a four day journey which has since become known as The Hardest Thing We've Ever Done™. We hiked the Long Range Traverse in Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland, complete with all our gear on our backs. There were no marked trails and the terrain was difficult. Many people thought we were crazy to do it, and that's before they realized I was pregnant!

But let's face it. If I was able to get through this, then getting my PhD shouldn't be so bad. I even learned a few tricks along the way to help me get past feeling my lowest.

The first day of the hike is by far the most gruelling. In the picture above, we are at the top of a gorge. In the far distance you can see water - that's the Western Brook Pond and where we started our journey. Getting up here takes a lot of persistence and strength, particularly near the end. The last upward bit takes you up the side of a waterfall where you basically have to climb rocks almost straight up. One wrong move and I'm pretty sure you'd be seriously injured as you fell backwards.

I was very tired in this last stretch, but I was able to find it in me to keep going. Perhaps it's because I knew I had to - it's not like I was going to walk back to the beginning (assuming I even could)! So I kept going. Slowly, granted, but never giving up. I even had a Radiohead song playing in my head over and over: "Try the best you can... the best you can is good enough..."

When we finally made it to the top, I wanted to collapse and cry. We sat down for a minute but then had to go find a decent water source. After deciding we were going to keep going to find a good campsite (we knew we wouldn't make it to the one we had intended to stay at), I looked back and saw the view everyone comes here for:

Despite utter exhaustion, I knew it would be worth snapping a quick photo before dragging myself away. I'm really glad I did.

I figure that just like getting out of the gorge, if I have to go a little slower to make it to the end of grad school, I've learned that not only is it ok, it's totally going to be worth it.

The rest of the trip was tough, but I never had a low point again. I knew if I could make it this far, I could do the rest as well. I may have also been a bit more mentally prepared for the difficulty of the journey than Andrew was - I think he found it more difficult than he expected. (Which isn't to say he did awesome - he could have finished even sooner if it wasn't for me slowing us down. But there were times he was getting pretty worried and I was able to keep our spirits up.)

Accepting the fact that the challenge will be great seems to be a really good way to set yourself up for success.

When we finally got back in the three nights we had hoped to do the hike in (though we were prepared for four just in case), we showered and then collapsed. The next morning, Andrew's parents, also visiting the area, presented us with these awesome t-shirts commemorating our accomplishment.

Whether it's a shirt, a degree, or just a really good story to tell, doing something difficult in your life makes it feel like you've really lived.

If you'd like to see the rest of our photos along with commentary, you can do so on this public Facebook album.

Teaching at Girl Develop It Ottawa's Kickoff Event

2011-09-14T10:31:00.000-04:00

Girl Develop It: "Want to learn how to code? Have a great idea? Don't be shy. Develop it." It's exactly what the Ottawa community needs: a way to engage professional women in learning technical skills, particularly programming. Ultimately, this might also help bring together the community of women in technology with the women near technology, and maybe blur the line between the two.

Good friend and one of the four original CU-WISE founders Serena Ngai got an Ottawa chapter of Girl Develop It started this past summer, and I couldn't help but offer my time and support to make it happen. When we met to talk about what we should do for the first class or event, I suggested a free afternoon workshop that would not require too much of a time commitment from participants, yet still give a taste of what programming was like; hopefully participants would be itching for more and look forward to signing up for the more extensive classes to be offered later.

And so our kickoff event was born: Intro to Scratch Programming was held this past Saturday and if you go by the enthusiasm of the participants both during and after the workshop, it was a great success!

I was able to re-purpose the content I had developed for my Introduction to Computers for Arts and Social Sciences course that I teach at Carleton in the summer. I started with a description of what exactly computer science is, emphasizing how it connects with whatever interests you might already have and why it's useful to learn even now long after school is done for some. Then I went through some basic programming concepts in Scratch: boolean values, if and if/else statements, loops, variables, and Scratch's special broadcast functionality. Finally, I showed how to make a game by filling a bit of code to an unfinished project and left some time for the audience to play and explore on their own.

Something I really appreciated being able to do in this setting was allow the group to test their understanding and explore Scratch a bit after every main concept I presented. I usually asked them to do something specific but also encouraged them to go beyond that and experiment with other code to see what would happen. This was not possible in my summer course, since not all students had a computer in front of them during lectures. It made a huge difference in terms of audience engagement and their ability to learn: this is absolutely something I recommend that all instructors do for future Girl Develop It classes.

Like I said, I think the workshop was a success, and overall I'm very happy with how it went. As always, there is something to improve for next time, and so here is my list of what I would have liked to do differently:

I must admit I put my slides together at the last minute since I knew I could reuse material from my summer course. But this made me forget to make a backup PDF copy of the PowerPoint slides like I normally would. When the projector didn't work on my Windows install, I had to reboot into the Mac side of my laptop and present the slides with messed up formatting.
I usually like to do a round of introductions among the audience to break the ice and get a feel for where everyone's coming from, but forgot to do this after we finally got our projector woes sorted out.
I am glad that I talked about what computer science is, but I usually get to spend more time on this, giving more practical examples. I was worried about time so kept it pretty general. Hopefully the main idea of how widespread CS is and how many areas it connects to came across.
The game I showed at the end was called Oscartime and was from a first year course taught at Harvard. As soon as I started to go through it, I realized that it was a bit much for a three hour workshop. I was still able to use it to point out the practical use of some of the programming concepts learned earlier, but there were a couple of things that were a bit advanced. Though in a multi-day course I would show this game at some point, I should have shown a simpler example first.

Download the Workshop Slides

You can download my slides in one of two formats:

PowerPoint 2007 (includes extra information in the notes section)
PDF

Game Papers at SIGGRAPH 2011 (Part 2 of 2)

2011-09-09T17:12:00.002-04:00

A previous post talked about two game paper presentations I saw at SIGGRAPH 2011. Here is part two with a summary of the second two talks.

Evaluating gesture-based games with older adults on a large screen display

[ACM Digital Library]

The theme for this talk was the usability, acceptability, and applicability of gesture-based games among healthy older adults. The presenter said that some of the issues with previous work in the area of cognitive training, rehab and exergaming include small study samples, issues with control groups, and the fact that evaluations were done with existing games and systems. The authors' work presumably addresses one or more of these.

The presentation reported on results of experiments done with games the authors created specifically for this purpose using a large projection screen, infrared source and camera, and blob detection. Physical props are sometimes included as well. Three games were created: virtual soccer, mosquito invasion, and human Tetris. The subjects used to test these games were aged 55-75 and in good health.

The general results after testing the game with a series of questionnaires and practice / gameplay sessions are as follows:

users were tech-savvy and physically active
there was a particularly positive correlation between physical engagement and social interaction for all games
virtual soccer: strenuous and physically challenging
mosquito invasion: intuitive and practical
ranked highest: wanting to be mentally and physically challenging
ranked lowest: having a partner to play with or having hands-free interaction
everyone was highly competitive, but there was a varying degree of physicality
occlusion and usability issues were a concern

The main conclusions were that there is a need for more complex gameplay and a general need for both physical and cognitive engagement among this demographic.

My thoughts on this talk were that the games did seem a little too simple to be of much interest for long, as many research-based games tend to be. I understand wanting to control certain factors to answer specific questions, but I do wonder how much more beneficial it is to create these sorts of games instead of studying existing commercial games. I am happy to see that there is a focus on older adults though, and hope that they continue to improve games for this audience so they are more refined by the time I get to that age myself.

The Impact of Negative Game Reviews and User Comments on Player Experience

[ACM Digital Library][Direct PDF]

This presentation was, by far, my favourite of the conference. Granted, I actually didn't see as many talks as I could have, but honestly, most of what I saw was status quo at best (I'm pretty picky about presentation standards and am always trying to push people to take their abilities a step further).

The thing that this presenter did so well was remember the difference between oral and written communication, telling a story about his work that differed from the structure of a traditional paper. The slides had almost no text, and the graphs were highlighted in just the right way to emphasize the point being made at the time. Kudos to Ian Livingston!

Of course, in addition to being a good talk, it helps that the content was interesting. The main research question was whether someone's opinion of a game would be (sub-consciously) affected by a negative review they had read about the game. For instance, Duke Nukem Forever hasn't exactly scored very well among critics - would my enjoyment of the game be decreased if I knew that going in?

As it turns out, it probably would be!

The study conducted to prove this involved only the text (no scores) from several reviews of existing games that few people would have heard of. The texts that players read first were either positive or negative as determined by an emotional analysis tool, or unrelated to the game. Players then played the game and were asked to rate it with a score of 0-100. They were also asked to rate their mood on a scale of 1-5 to see if that affected the results at all.

The findings:

the tone of the review text does affect player experience
when negative review text related to the game, the perception of that game did change, whereas control text (unrelated to the game) had no effect, nor did the positive text
no significant difference between reviews and user comments, so no real difference in terms of the authority of the author
the differences in game enjoyment cannot be explained by differences in mood (the mood ratings had no effect)

While this research isn't really related to anything I'm working on, the results were interesting and the presentation made me happy. This will be the one I remember the longest.

Game Papers at SIGGRAPH 2011 (Part 1 of 2)

2011-09-07T14:49:00.000-04:00

Following up on my general impressions of SIGGRAPH I wanted to write about a few of the games paper presentations I enjoyed seeing at the conference. I paid most attention to the first four talks that were focused on analyzing player behaviour and experience. This post contains summaries and thoughts on the first two of these papers, and a subsequent post will cover the second two.

Evaluating enjoyment within alternate reality games
[ACM Digital Library] [Direct PDF]

This work is all about formally figuring out what makes an alternate reality game enjoyable. As explained in the paper:

In our work, we are interested in one specific sub-genre of pervasive gaming known as Alternate Reality Games (ARGs). Layering a fictional world over the real world, ARGs provide an interactive narrative experience played out in the physical world of the player. Although a sub-genre of pervasive games, the emphasis on the narrative experience brings with it even more unique and novel considerations not normally associated with game development.

In particular, narrative is given as a key element to ARGs, unlike in pervasive games in general. In fact, ARGs are essentially positioned as reality-based interactive story-telling engines, though not in those words: "the game should allow for non linearity in the story structure and contain key user-decision points at which the player will make choices that affect their journey through the story."

The authors propose and test five key principles that they believe are important to player experience in ARGs:

The game needs a strong basic story, a principle generalized from traditional narrative research.
Game content should be split into modular pieces based on the fact that the story is spread out over the real world. Players should be able to reassemble the pieces in whatever order they wish.
The story pieces should be meaningful in the sense that they are consistent and all play a role in the formation of the game.
Players must be able to interact with the system, and should feel that their interactions affect the game in a meaningful way.
Because the skill required by the game is set by the content alone, it is important to ensure that the content is accessible to a wide audience.

To test a set of eleven metrics that come from these principles, the authors designed two games with similar plots but different narrative structures: one was designed specifically to score well on the metric while the other was designed to score low. Seven participants consistently ranked the "good" game better than the other one in a statistically significant way.

I hope to use some of the ideas in this paper to give me a starting point in thinking about metrics for narrative in educational games (either in general or for reality-based games). This may become one facet of my thesis, which I'm thinking will investigate the role of narrative in educational games (i.e. is it useful just for engagement, or for actually facilitating learning, and how does it do this).

Visualizing and understanding players' behavior in video games: discovering patterns and supporting aggregation and comparison
[ACM Digital Library] [Direct PDF]

The motivation for this paper comes from wanting to evaluate how people behave in virtual environments using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The tool presented makes use of telemetry to track the actions a player takes in a game (such as how often they jumped, how long they spent with a particular non-player character, and so on) for analysis later.

Some of the challenges in designing such a tool include the fact that there is a lot of data to choose from - often terabytes. You need to have a deep understanding of the game you want to track and analyze. You need a clear understanding of the questions that should be asked. Information visualization is a field of its own, and there is the trade-off between flexibility and usability. The focus of this project was to create a visualization tool that "allows analysts to make sense of telemetry data through visualization and comparison between different player types. By interacting with our system, analysts are able to visualize player actions by cluster or aggregated over multiple clusters."

Some of the interesting features include being able to:

cluster data, which is important since gameplay usually does not follow a normal distribution
filter data by specifying time windows
filter out or superimpose colour-coded event categories
provide detail information on demand
visualize player progression over time
build a story on the data and understand cause and effect

The presentation itself was a nice change of pace in that the speaker demonstrated her tool without using many slides. I'm pretty picky when it comes to what makes a "good" presentation, so this was nice to see.

In terms of my own research thoughts: it seems like ideas from this paper and the previous might combine in an interesting way. For example, could using this kind of visualization tool with a narrative-based game help find more useful metrics? How would it help in the educational context I'm interested in?

Techniques for Telling Nonlinear Stories

2011-09-05T16:20:00.000-04:00

At the beginning of October, I'll be participating in a digital narrative workshop for the GRAND NCE called 'Experiencing Stories with/in Digital Games.' The following abstract describes a round table talk I'll be giving as part of the student gathering:

Non-linear fiction ranges from the use of static plots with events presented in a non-chronological way to interactive story worlds where users make choices that affect the outcome of the story. A wide range of media can be used to implement works of non-linear fiction, including novels, film, storytelling engines, and games. In all of these cases, there are multiple techniques available for designing and telling a non-linear story.

We have compiled a taxonomy for these techniques with broad categories for strategies for explaining non-linearity, structuring stories as graphs, relying on emergent behaviour, creating character driven plots, and designing data-driven interactive worlds. Each of these categories breaks down further with classic examples from all types of media and with approaches reported on in academic literature. For instance, a strategy to explain a story’s non-linearity is to attribute it to time travel (The Legend of Zelda: Orcarina of Time) or to a hallucinating or brain-damaged character (Memento). Many examples use a simple branching structure to change the story based on player choices (Choose Your Own Adventure) while others rely on game data to adjust how other characters in the story react to you (Fallout 3).

In this talk, we will present our taxonomy and frame it in the context of story in games. We will discuss what techniques have been used in existing games, and which have not yet been employed. We will consider why games have not used certain techniques, and use this to suggest how they might do so in the future.

I'm currently hammering out a potential thesis research plan for myself, and this work will contribute toward that. I'm really enjoying this whole narrative thread I've embarked on this past summer.

Impressions of SIGGRAPH 2011

2011-08-15T23:16:00.001-04:00

Last week I was in Vancouver for this year's SIGGRAPH conference - not presenting, but as a lab trip. As the website says, the "conference and exhibition is a five-day interdisciplinary educational experience including a three-day commercial exhibition that attracts hundreds of exhibitors from around the world. SIGGRAPH is widely recognized as the most prestigious forum for the publication of computer graphics research." These are some of general impressions of my first SIGGRAPH experience.

Fellow lab member Jamie and I outside the convention center.

Location. Being able to stay in Canada was nice for us (especially since we could use our cell phones and data plans). Getting from the airport to downtown was a matter of taking one train for just half an hour - very convenient!

The convention center was split into two buildings - east and west - but it was no
problem getting between them for what I wanted to do.

Venue. I thought the convention center was amazing. The rooms were well equipped, the decor was appropriate, there were plenty of washrooms and water fountains, and the views of the water were wonderful.

Exhibition. I wasn't a huge fan of the exhibition as I personally found it overwhelming and overly commercial; however, for those that like seeing all the newest products and services, and don't mind the scale, it was probably quite good. It was obvious that much money was spent on the booths there.

SCVNGR. The Google booth at the exhibition advertised a SCVNGR opportunity to get some Google swag. I figured it might include actually looking more carefully at some of the other booths there, but that definitely wasn't the case. In the end I found it to be unclear (I could only win one prize even though there were two rewards listed in the app for SIGGRAPH), and mostly disconnected from the actual location (some of the challenges were just math puzzles). It didn't enhance my experience at all.

Animation Festival. One day when I was too tired to take in any more talks, I spent the afternoon watching animated shorts. I enjoyed this way more than I anticipated! The quality was spectacular and there was much variety in the animation styles and the stories.

Courses. I took in a couple of courses throughout the week. I was a little surprised by how little they resembled actual courses. Instead, they were pretty much a series of lectures on a particular topic. Huge audiences, no interaction, and not much practicality (though this may have just been what the ones I attended were like). I still learned a few things, but feel like I could have learned a lot more if the format was closer to a workshop.

Technical paper presentations. I actually didn't end up seeing a huge number of paper talks since I figured I could read papers later more easily. The presentations I did see were like most that occur at conferences: not very good. The expected standard of talks involve text on PowerPoint slides and presenters who forget that oral communication is a very different thing from written communication. There was one great presentation that I saw, but I will save writing about that for when I do another post about the game papers.

Emerging Technologies. This was one of my favorite parts of the conference. There were so many interesting or just plain fun exhibits. I particularly enjoyed the pregnancy simulator vest that gave the wearer an idea of what a kicking baby and a growing belly and breasts would feel like. Being that I'm almost five months pregnant myself, I wish my husband could have tried this out. ;)

While the pregnancy simulator suit grows, you see information on the screen that
explains baby's current status each week of the pregnancy.

Art Gallery. This was with the Emerging Technologies. Some of it was pretty neat, but some of it I didn't really "get." Art can be like that. I was most taken by the remote wind exhibit. The idea was interesting and the result was relaxing to watch.

These wispy grass-like metal structures moved according to how the wind blows in some remote location.

Overall, I liked SIGGRAPH. I was regretting going at first because we had to leave for our big east coast vacation only 30 hours after I got home from Vancouver, but I'm glad I got to experience it. Whether I end up back again to present one day or not, it was well worth experiencing this conference at least once.

Our First Ultrasound (Technology is Awesome!)

2011-08-05T10:52:00.001-04:00

I got my first ultrasound on Wednesday. Baby was 20 weeks old. I think the grandparents-to-be were more excited about the baby itself; we just might have been more enthralled with the technology that allowed us to see it.

Still images don't really do these machines justice. They look a lot less clear than the moving images shown on the screen in real time. It was fun to watch a very active little baby do everything from yawn, kick and punch, and put its hand on its forehead.

It was almost just as fun to watch the technician do her thing; it was amazing how proficient she was at switching views, making measurements, and replaying the cute things baby did right after they happened (we watched the yawn a few times before moving on, for example).

I have to wonder exactly what has changed in the last few decades to make the technology so much more impressive. Is it a case of better engineering, and signals the machines send and receive are simply more accurate? Or is there some computer science going on to correct the images as they are formed?

Either way, it's thanks to this super awesome technology that we now have our very first picture of baby giving us the finger. Granted, this one's not all that high quality, but the zoomed in arm and hand make a memory we'll love having for years to come.

Do I Want to Be an Entrepreneur?

2011-08-02T18:23:00.001-04:00

Even though it's early, I have been starting to think about what I want to do when I graduate. Teaching is high up there if I can find a good local job doing it, but I have also been toying with the idea of starting something of my own. But, at this point, I can't quite figure out if I actually want to be an entrepreneur.

Lemonade, anyone? by trippinlarry

Pros: I would be able to combine all of my current passions in a creative way: teaching, outreach, and educational games. There are several areas of opportunity, from consulting to application development.

Cons: Entrepreneurship takes a lot of time! From what I can see you have to be willing to put in many, many hours, and our lifestyle has been more about balance than working much more than a regular work week. Plus, there's that whole having a baby thing to throw into the mix.

Just for fun I took this Entrepreneurialist Culture Quotient Test that I found through a friend. I scored somewhere in between being suited for a regular job and entrepreneurialism - perhaps, it suggested, I should consider a partner. Hmm...

The pros, cons, and good characteristics to have (written by the same person as the test above) don't seem to make the picture any clearer. There are as many things that excite me as scare me on these lists.

Luckily, I don't have to decide yet. Over the next little while, I'm trying to make use of some of the great resources friends have shared to learn more and more about the possibilities. Before I'm done my PhD I'd like to take advantage of a program like Lead to Win, or perhaps a less "actually start a business when you're done" version of it. Maybe some business idea competitions (like the Nicol Challenge I participated in this year) would be a good place to test the waters.

Anyway, here are some of the resources I have found so far. If you have any others, or any advice you can give me, please do share in the comments!

AVC: musings of a VC in NYC (blog)
Lean Startup Wiki (online resource)
LaunchBit Startup Guide (online resource)
Startup Weekend (events and associated book)
A Good Hard Kick in the Ass: Basic Training for Entrepreneurs (book)
Startup from the Ground Up: Practical Insights for Transforming an Idea into a Business (book)

A Techie's Vacation

2011-07-27T17:36:00.000-04:00

My husband and I are taking a 3+ week vacation to the east coast of Canada this August, and because we're both computer geeks, there's no doubt we'll be lugging a bunch of techie stuff with us. How much is too much?

iPhone 4 capture by angietorres

First there's the cell phones. We'll bring both, even though mine's the only smart phone. His can act as an emergency backup or it can be used to call each other if needed. Sadly, while we are in Newfoundland, neither will work because they have an incompatible network there.

But not to worry - we will bring at least one of our laptops, and can use the call-a-phone feature in GMail if we need to. Should we bring both laptops? I'm thinking we should because I'll be using mine to process and upload photos (I'll want a mouse for that!) as well as check up on school / professional happenings. I'm sure he'll appreciate the ability to check his own email and browse Reddit after a long day of sightseeing while I do that.

Then there's the camera gear. We have a Nikon D90 that we just love, and four lenses to go with it. Add to that the charger, extra battery, remote, memory cards, battery grip, flashes, and tripod and this stuff might just need its own suitcase! Plus, I just got a new underwater point-and-shoot camera for activities that aren't so DSLR friendly (particularly backpack hiking/camping).

But we can't stop there. No no, I also have on my list my Nintendo DS for lazy day anywhere gaming opportunities, and an FM transmitter for the iPhone (stupid car stereo that doesn't have even an auxiliary jack...argh!). Oh yes, and a car GPS since my data plan is useless in Newfoundland and possibly other more remote areas and an orienteering GPS for the backpacking excursion.

You know how some people use their vacation as a way to get away from technology? Yeah, I guess that's not us. Just don't tip off any would-be thieves about the whereabouts of our car, if you don't mind.

Women and Going Beyond the Game

2011-07-23T12:29:00.001-04:00

While it seems to me that many more women are playing traditionally "male" video games these days, there is also a group of women who go beyond the game in ways that, according to James Paul Gee and Elizabeth Hayes, are important to 21st century learning. An in depth look at this phenomenon and what we can learn from it is described in Women and Gaming: The Sims and 21st Century Learning.

Although not Gee's strongest work in my opinion (I'm not familiar with Hayes), this book does provoke some interesting thought on the state of education today. I must admit, I rather enjoy reading about what's wrong with how education is done today and potential ways to improve it. Here are some of the problems with "too many schools" as quoted directly from the summary chapter:

Too many of our schools:
focus on information and facts in an age when these are all cheaply available on the Internet
focus on standardized skills in an age where people with only standardized will be competing against lower-cost competition in China and India
focus on what students know in an age where skills, information, and technologies quickly go out of date
focus on preparing students for jobs in an age where most jobs are service jobs and do not pay well or bring people much status
focus on individual achievement in an age where almost all real problems, and most high-tech workplaces, demand skills in team work and collaboration
underutilize technology and are, indeed, frightened by it as authorities ban Internet sites, mobile devices, and games in an age where almost all deep learning recruits technology
treat students as consumers, and often passive ones at that, in an age when young people produce, design, modify, and make choices in their popular culture

The women discussed in the book are said to go beyond the game. They start out as players, but then find a passion that leads them to become producers and mentors.

For example, one case study described a shut-in grandmother whose only portal to the outside world was the Internet. When her granddaughter wanted a purple potty in the Sims game they played together, she had to learn how to make one — there weren't any ready-made purple potties available. From there she became a renowned Sims designer and valuable community member as she helped others hone their skills.

While what these women do may sound simple to technologists, it really does demonstrate the kind of learning that we wish students would do in the classroom. If only students could find a passion that would drive their desire to gain all the tools needed to solve the problems that mattered to them.

One of the most interesting takeaways from this book was, for me, the idea that not everyone will have a high prestige job in the knowledge market. That's just not the way the world works - we need service workers just as much as need engineers. But despite the fact that many jobs available may not be considered prestigious, members of society can gain prestige in other ways (even as a world renowned designer in the Sims creation communities). I love that technology can give meaning to the life of anyone who wants to take advantage of it.

I recommend this book to anyone who wants to think about different models of education and gain insight into how people use games beyond a form of entertainment. The stories of the women they studied are also interesting in themselves.

Story in Board Games: Betrayal at House on the Hill

2011-07-20T10:48:00.000-04:00

Imagine finding yourself in the front foyer of what is probably a haunted mansion with a few of your closest friends. There's no way out, since the front door is locked (naturally). You begin to explore the house, discovering one new room at a time. You might run into some unexpected circumstances, halting your exploration temporarily, or find some items that might be useful to you later.

Suddenly, something strange begins to happen. Whatever was haunting the house makes itself known, and even worse, you find that one of your friends has betrayed you and is on its side! (Or, perhaps it is you who does the betraying!) Now it's an us-against-them game of survival where only one side can win.

This is the narrative behind the board game Betrayal at House on the Hill. I played it earlier this week with a group of three others based on hearing that it did a decent job of setting up a non-linear narrative. I wanted to observe how well the game mechanics and events contributed to a unique story, and to see whether I thought the game represented anything close to true interactive storytelling.

The game was amusing enough. I liked the fact that the layout of the house would always be different based on how the room tiles were 'discovered.' The haunt phase of the game started at a random point, and there were about 50 haunt scenarios that you could end up playing. Which haunt was chosen depended on certain state in the game, such as the last Omen card that was played. Two books - one for the traitor, one for the heroes - gave background narrative to the haunt as well as the rules of how it would work.

Despite these nice narrative additions, the game mechanics still felt fairly disconnected from the story. Cards in the game had their own little story bits that were completely independent from the overall story (for example, the Event cards contained isolated 'horror genre tropes' as one fellow player described it). Maybe we were unlucky, but the connection between the current state of the game and the haunt we played was extremely minimal and almost immediately forgotten. Game play could not affect the haunt's story in any way more complex than having a win scenario and a lose scenario (and even those weren't all that deep or interesting).

Basically, the whole story thing ended up being underwhelming.

This really makes me wonder: are there any board games that allow players to make non-obvious choices that meaningfully affect the game's narrative, giving an interactive storytelling experience? The only example I can think of is the Dungeons and Dragons genre of role playing games, where the dungeon master acts as a storytelling engine, crafting unique narratives within the rules of the current game.

It makes me wonder whether the only way to achieve interactive storytelling with a board game is to have a storytelling engine, either human or computer. Although computer-based engines aren't nearly as good as human storytellers, I think it could be interesting to craft a game that used a mobile device to mediate a truly interactive story experience. Otherwise, without a human mediator, I'm not sure how easy it would be to take the idea of story in board games a step further.

Featured in 'Women In Tech You Need To Follow On Twitter '

2011-07-18T11:17:00.000-04:00

On Friday evening, I was surprised to open my email after only a few hours and find that I had over 100 unread messages. For someone who almost always has inbox zero this was quite the anomaly! When I looked at my Twitter mentions, I figured out why.

What a pleasant surprise! I was featured in The Huffington Post's Women In Tech You Need To Follow On Twitter article.

I am listed as number twelve, but as I looked through the set of tweeters featured, I was surprised to see that I recognized very few. I couldn't help but wonder how many were actual women in tech rather than women near tech. Indeed, my fear was confirmed when the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology Twitter account pointed out that "@Huffposttech list seems short on practicing technologists (tho @gailcarmichael rocks!)."

The good news is that not only do we have an awesome list of technical women on Twitter (tech-women2follow), but I also noticed that you can submit new suggestions of women to include on the original article's list! You just click "Add a Slide" and then sign in using Facebook, Twitter, or one of several other options. (I didn't try it myself, so I'm not sure what's involved after that.) If you know some awesome women in tech who deserve to be on the list, please do go and suggest them. Or perhaps you can even add yourself!

In the meantime, I have to go think of some interesting things to tweet about. I feel like I have a larger audience to please now and don't want to disappoint. ;)

How Important is Interactive Storytelling in Educational Games?

2011-07-14T14:20:00.000-04:00

Story in games. Something we seem to be trying for, but continue to struggle with. Perhaps it's even worse for educational games: we are told that narrative engages learners and helps to situate content, but it's not clear whether we need a full fledged story instead of just a little bit of fiction to accomplish our goals. Worse, get it wrong, and your audience could see through it and dismiss the whole idea since they know you have an educational agenda.

Books by shutterhacks

I've been thinking lately about interactive storytelling. The way that I understand it, interactive storytelling involves a story world instead of a fixed plot. In this world are non-obvious choices that players can make to affect the overall story in a meaningful way. There are many different story lines or plots that could emerge from a single story world. While many games have story pieces with interactive game elements thrown in between them, I'm not convinced I can think of a game whose overall story could be truly and meaningfully affected by game play. (See, for example, my discussion on L.A. Noire.)

Could educational games benefit from true interactive storytelling? Perhaps not all subjects need large, elaborate story worlds that focus on theme, character, and so on, but maybe the ability to affect the story would help learners make sense of a few interconnected topics.

Chris Crawford says in his book on interactive storytelling that "stories are complete patterns that communicate a special kind of knowledge to our pattern-recognizing mental modules" and that "storytelling’s value arises in an attempt to convey a complex mesh containing many linkages." I figure giving users control over what nodes in the mesh they want to see next or letting them discover the linkages through meaningful choice must be a powerful way to learn new concepts.

It's more obvious how some subjects, like history, might benefit from the use of interactive storytelling, but it's not so clear for something like computer science. From my extensive experience using CS Unplugged activities, I can say the use of fiction in the activities helps kids and young adults grasp what are otherwise abstract concepts much more quickly than without it. How might a more complex game or storytelling experience enhance this understanding?

One example I have been thinking about is the activity for finite state automata. I never tell students exactly what we're going to be learning about while describing how the activity is going to work; I just promise I'll make it clear later. Once I start talking about pirates, nobody seems to mind. After all the students make their way from Pirate Island to Treasure Island, recording their routes along the way, we build up a complete map on the chalk board and compare how long each of them took for their routes.

Because the pirates are only allowed to ask to use shipping lane A or B at each island (at which point the island tells them where they will end up next), the routes are actually a series of A's and B's. With these written out, I tell the students we just made our own language, and each valid route to Treasure Island is a word in that language. The "Pirate Code," if you will. Then we can start talking more and more abstractly and even work through some other puzzles involving state machines that reveal interesting characteristics of the languages they represent.

I know the students understand the concept at a basic level because they are able to solve the puzzles without too much help. But what if we wanted them to understand on a deeper level? Maybe we're working with second year university students who need to go quite a bit further with the concept, for instance.

Would designing a more elaborate pirate world that had characters with goals and motivations help? Perhaps the player would somehow have the ability to choose what map to apply to a particular situation and see the consequences of that choice reflected in the story. It might make them think about why that happened in the context of the properties of the map they chose, and then figure out how to choose a map that would result in an outcome more to their liking the next time. (Naturally, these maps could grow to be more complex than simply representing shipping lanes.) Even if the story (and the player's ability to control it) only serves to focus the player's attention on important pedagogical details, it seems like it could be hugely beneficial.

Yet the question still remains: can this win come from a simpler fictional layer or a non-interactive story? I don't know the answer, but I'm starting to think that running a few experiments to find out could be very worthwhile. (Assuming, of course, that we can figure out this whole interactive storytelling thing in games in a more reasonable way!)

So I Found this Great Learning Games Company...

2011-07-11T11:00:00.000-04:00

Persistence pays off. Through a long chain of events — from entering Imagine Cup to getting in touch with its head guy, to connecting with the Games for Learning Institute and attending the Games for Change festival, and finally discovering Filament Games — I am closer than ever to seeing my vision for my Gram's House project realized.

Gram's House is a game designed to change the image of computing among middle school girls and to instill confidence by teaching real computer science concepts through the game's puzzles. The game will have a story that provides an emotional hook that shows that you can do social good with computer science.

Our Imagine Cup submission can only be called a minimal demo of the game, but one that doesn't capture even a fraction of what I envision for the final product. I have wanted to find someone to collaborate with to see the game developed without any luck until now. While at the Games for Change Festival, I saw a talk by the CEO of Filament Games and immediately wondered if they'd be interested in such a project. I sent an email with hope but no expectations, but was delighted to hear back from one of the higher-ups almost right away!

I've been speaking with the company's research director and it turns out they have had their eye on a particular grant that appears to be a great fit for this project. We are currently looking for other collaborators in the US before pursuing the grant. We've found a few so far, but if you're a faculty member in computer science or learning science and think this project sounds interesting, let me know!

So far I'm really impressed with Filament Games. Their philosophy is impressive and I love the research-based approach they seem to take with their games. You can play their games online, and everything I've played so far has been high quality. Whether this project works out or not, I hope I have the privilege of working with Filament Games at some point in the future!

Proof You Don't Need to Stick to Just MS Office for Arts and Social Science Students

2011-07-06T13:05:00.000-04:00

My arts and social science students expected a relatively easy class that mostly taught them the ins and outs of Microsoft Office software. They were probably pretty surprised when I told them I was going to teach them some computer science instead. I definitely pushed them intellectually, but they rose to the challenge, and many walked away with a new found interest in computing they never expected to have.

/approve by striatic

Now that the collection of my course feedback for these arts and social science students has slowed down (and maybe stopped), I figured I could now share some of the interesting results. Between the comments made in my informal survey and the grades the students have so far on what was by no means an "easy" exam, one can only conclude that there is absolutely no reason to stick to MS Office for a course like this. Their grades don't plummet, and I'd be willing to bet that many of the profs who have taught this course before would be surprised to see what kinds of questions the students were able to answer.

One of the biggest wins for me, though, was actually sparking some interest in creating technology. A few of the female students told me how excited they were about using Scratch and were going to be teaching their kids, grandkids, or siblings how to use it. Many also said they wanted to take more programming classes. One male student told me he was considering switching altogether to computer science, and I managed to hook him up with a research assistant position with one of our HCI profs.

On the survey, I asked: Are you more likely to consider taking other programming classes (including outside of school, like the Girl Develop It program) or switching to computer science after taking this class?

Here are the results for the 21 people that completed the survey:

No, I am not likely to take any other programming or computer science classes: 10
Yes, I am now more likely to take other programming or computer science classes: 9
I want to. But there is no free elective for the first year: 1
Maybe/unsure: 1

That's about half of the respondents admitting they are interested in pursuing the topic further. But even if not everyone wants to learn more about computer science or programming in particular, it seems many feel more confident in their computer abilities, which I also see as a win.

I asked: By the end of the course, I feel my confidence in using computers has increased.

The responses:

Strongly agree: 7
Agree: 8
Neutral / don't know: 5
Disagree: 1
Strongly disagree: 0

Much more than half felt they were better at using computers!

I got a lot of insight into some of the topics I chose for the course and other aspects of how the course was run, but I'll save that analysis for another day. I still consider the course a work in progress, and my next step is to get all profs to teach some of the topics I cover, and if possible, to update the course calendar description.

I'll close this post with some of my favourite comments left in the free-text areas:

"It was not exactly what I was expecting but it was a challenge for me because Im terrible with any science, formulas or computers and this course helped me confront that. Im happy I took this class."
"I liked that this class gave a 'human' approach to computers and that we covered multiple topics."
"HCI was beyond what I thought computer sciences was. It gave such a meaningful and human approach to computer I never thought I would see."
"The videos were also a lot of fun to watch and an added bonus to learning in a more interactive way. Guest speakers were also cool."
"I liked how we learned a bit of everything ie. programming, word etc."
"I like our instructor both she and the last speaker helped me think about computer science as a more attainable area to understand and be a part of. I enjoyed playing around in scratch."
"I loved all the guest speakers! Thank you for having such a great possitive attitude. I never though I would gain any computer skills and I now have a new passion for it.By far this is the best elective I took at Carleton. It was extremely valuable and helpful. Thank you for all the help! I'm looking forward to taking more computer classes or workshops. Not only has this class helped me with computer skills but it has inspired me in many other aspects. Thanks a bunch!"

That Time in Grad School You Feel a Little Lost

2011-06-30T22:31:00.000-04:00

Until you know exactly what your thesis project is going to be, it's easy to feel a little lost. Even if you know the kinds of things you want to do, but not exactly what the contribution will be, it's easy to wonder where you'll end up. That's basically where I am right now: between courses / comprehensive exams and having a solid research direction. It's a little scary, but I think it's ok. I'm ok with it.

Metro Woman by Extra Medium

Granted, I don't want to stay here very long. I want to be able to propose as soon as I can. Originally the goal was going to be in the spring, but since I'm now expecting at Christmas, that's obviously going to change. On the other hand, knowing that I only have the fall semester to get as much done as I can before a substantial break does encourage me to focus more. (I'm sure now that I'm done with the throwing up stage my brain's capacity for awesome will increase tenfold or more!)

I think there are two important things to remember during this stage of a PhD: First, don't get down on yourself. I'm willing to bet that almost everyone feels lost for at least a few minutes (ha!) at this stage. Second, don't let yourself linger too long. What "too long" means depends partially on how lucky you've been - if you know you are working hard enough, you may still need more time to hit on that killer idea. That's ok - failure along the way is ok and probably expected. The trick is to avoid being discouraged and giving up, even if subconsciously.

If you are past this stage, what helped you get through? Do you have any strategies that can help us "lost souls" find our focus and improve our chances of finding our contribution?

L.A. Noire: A Great Story Despite Its Linearity

2011-06-28T13:28:00.000-04:00

My mind has been occupied by narrative lately. I've been surveying literature about non-linear / interactive narrative and storytelling with the goal of eventually coming up with new strategies for piecing together story fragments in an interactive story. In particular, I'm interested in how this could help in the context of educational games where designers have a specific learning objective in mind.

Warning: This post contains spoilers for the game L.A. Noire!

LA Noire Screenshot 4 by The GameWay

Since my husband and I have been working through L.A. Noire lately (which I love!), I've been thinking about how linear the story has been (especially for an interactive video game).

The story is the best feature of the game in my opinion. I can't really remember any game I've played that has had a story that is so effective. I suppose Final Fantasy VII would have come the closest given how surprised and upset I was that they killed Aeris by the end of the first disc. (Disclaimer: I haven't actually played a huge number of games. I bet there are lots of counter examples to my claims, and I'd love to hear about them in the comments.)

In L.A. Noire, I'm really drawn to the character development and the gradual insights you get into the victims of crimes and the detectives themselves. I find some of the characters vile at first, such as your homicide partner Rusty Galloway, a womanizer and apparently lazy sod. But then they grow on me — through little tidbits of conversation, you start to see why they are the way they are. Most video game characters I've encountered haven't been that complex.

The game definitely feels like a game, yet when you really stop to think about it, the plot is really quite linear. There isn't a lot you can do to change the outcome of the story. When we were given the opportunity to decide who to charge with murder in a couple of cases, it wasn't even clear to me whether we were supposed to know whether we were right or wrong. That made me suspect there was no right answer, which was later confirmed by finally catching the real killer for all the murder cases we worked on. Other than that, the only real story-related choice is how you interrogate suspects, but it appears that only new information will come to light if you get it right, while the main plot remains the same.

The Way of the Game describes L.A. Noire this way:

Police procedurals aren’t about gunfights, car chases and explosions. They are slow, methodical vehicles for telling a story about a crime, who committed it and the people who figured it out. In L.A. Noire, you’ll get to learn more about Phelps, his history and what he does when he’s not busy being the one good cop in a city full of sinners. You’ll learn more about his partners and their views of good, evil, and the gray area in between. L.A. Noire’s story is slow to develop, but every new episode gets you deeper and deeper.

With such a great, yet linear, story, the question remains: does it matter? If the game is engaging and enjoyable, probably not, but it does make you wonder when we'll be able to have truly great non-linear stories in games.

Seeing Gaming in a New Light: Games for Change Festival 2011

2011-06-25T17:00:00.006-04:00

I just got back from New York City for my first visit to the Games for Change Festival. In its eighth year, this year’s festival was held on June 20-22 at New York University. I wasn’t able to attend the entire conference, but thanks to live streaming I caught most of the Tuesday talks I would have missed otherwise. (You can watch the archives of the live stream, too!)

In telling you about all the amazing things I learned the past few days, I’m compelled to start at the end. The closing keynote by Jesse Schell was one of the highlights of the festival. I’ve always admired Jesse for his top-notch game design, writing, and speaking skills. His book The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses was the first book that really got me started with game design (I actually only got into this area at the beginning of my PhD studies less than two years ago). I was pumped to see him speak in New York, and I was not disappointed.

Games for Change 2011: Jesse Schell from Games for Change on Vimeo.

Jesse treated us to a brand new, never before seen talk called “Make Games, Not War.” You can watch that talk in this live stream archive video by scrolling ahead to the 57-minute mark.

He explored the ever controversial topic of violence in video games, keeping a scorecard that listed aspects of games that seemed to get players to become more war-like (including desensitization and games’ ability to train people to kill) and more peaceful (such as games acting as a form of catharsis and helping us see other points of view). For a while, the war-side seemed to be winning, but eventually the list evened out.

Without a clear winner between war and peace, Jesse forewarned us of the war for every person’s attention that various stakeholders are waging in the 21st century. There are those who want to persuade us to think like them or buy their products, fulfillers who want fulfil the wishes and fantasies of people (many game designers fall here), artists who aim to make a statement or bring to life something that wasn’t there before, and humanitarians who want to know how we can make things that will make us better people mentally and spiritually.

The audience of Games for Change wasn’t really like most game designers. No, we were mostly humanitarians, Jesse pointed out. What we try to do isn’t so different from what Mr Rogers tried to accomplish with his television series. We are the humanitarians, and we must find a way to take control of the persuaders who want so much to control everyone else.

Or perhaps we can look to the Olympics, where for a few short weeks, the troubles of the world are put aside and we can all act like children, seeing who can jump the highest, run the fastest, or throw a ball the farthest.

Jesse asks, “If we were better game designers, couldn’t it be the Olympics all the time?”

I almost wish Jesse’s talk was at the beginning of the festival to set the tone for the rest of the events. In an indirect way, this happened anyway - the end goal of all the presenters was to make the world a better place.

One of my favourite speakers on Tuesday was James Shelton from the US Department of Education. I really got the impression that he “got it” - education in its current form just isn’t going to continue working (if we can even say it ever worked in the last few decades).

He pointed out that the US isn’t falling behind in the world because it's getting worse; rather, other countries are pulling ahead because they are getting better. They have taken what the US has done and figured out how to do it better.

School is going to be reinvented because it has to be. But we’ve reached the limits in terms of funding. We have to do more with the same - or fewer - resources. That’s where the gaming industry comes in. Games know how to get people to have fun, engage, and change their perspectives, beliefs and behaviours. Fundamentally, that’s teaching. Or at least, that’s what teaching should be. We need to find ways to harness this in formal education.

The many researchers who presented at Wednesday’s Games For Learning Institute track have been working diligently on this problem. How can games be used for learning? What patterns emerge in terms of effective game mechanics that support this goal? How can we measure the success in terms of player engagement?

Games have been a controversial topic the last few years. I hope that as research on games for change pushes forward and we start to see more commercially successful titles, our opinion of them will change and we can focus more on how to make use of them rather than whether we should. I think this year’s festival has brought us closer to this goal, and I hope that your mind will be changed ever so slightly so you can be part of the movement.

I’ve posted my (very) rough live notes that I took during the conference, if you’d like to read them. Be sure to browse the livestream archives and check out some of these other articles about the conference:

What Were They Thinking? The Importance of Feedback

2011-06-21T10:40:00.001-04:00

Asking for honest, anonymous feedback can be scary. Really scary. But over the years, I've learned that the benefits of getting real feedback far outweigh the possibility that you'll get slammed. Feedback really does matter.

Unimpressed by Bill Swindaman

Last year was the first time I had ever been a contract instructor and the first time I taught my Introduction to Computers for Arts and Social Sciences course. I tried some new things that most other computer science profs at our school don't do. I needed to know whether these things worked. The teaching evaluations student have to fill in aren't terribly insightful so I created my own more detailed, course-specific survey instead.

I was pleasantly surprised with the responses. Lots of students took the time to fill in the survey and provided both positive feedback and constructive criticism. A couple of disgruntled students slammed me. That made me sad for a day but in the end I managed to find some useful information from their comments (especially the fact that they didn't realize what the course was really about!). The feedback I got was extremely useful in planning updates to the course this summer.

I just released a similar survey for this year's course. Within half an hour of posting it (and not even announcing it) I already had a few responses. These students are awesome. So far everything has been very positive, and has shown that I've found a really good set of topics for this course. I'm actually hoping to take the survey results to our school director and make the argument that the course description should be updated to reflect these more interesting topics and that the course actually covers these topics the rest of the year, not just in the summer. The consensus among the students is definitely that this should happen, and a surprising number are even saying they are more likely to pursue computer science or programming courses (at Carleton or in the community) as a result of taking my course.

Finally, a huge benefit to soliciting feedback is that I have some great quotes to use in my teaching portfolio. I've been compiling great tidbits from all my workshops and courses and posting them on my website (haven't posted this year's quite yet). If nothing else, I recommend everyone finds ways to get these kinds of quotes out of students at every opportunity! You can always keep the negative stuff from public's view, after all. ;)

On Telling the World My Life is About to Change

2011-06-17T11:53:00.001-04:00

I recently unleashed the following announcement to Facebook and Twitter:

BabyFactory.RequestNewInstance(BABY_TYPE_GEEK);

Pregnant. by rui guerra

That's right! I'm expecting!

I have been saving up that geeky little announcement for a while now. I wanted something I had never seen anyone else use, but that also had a tech twist. It got good response.

I'm due around Christmas, so barring any complications, I'll be able to work the entire fall semester. I'm hoping to take only four months of official leave, or possibly eight if I need it and we can afford it. The downside of being a student is that I don't think I'll be eligible for any employment insurance benefits (even though I pay into it from my TA and contract instructor salaries, I don't have enough working hours in the last year). I wonder if other countries are able to do more for pregnant students? (I'm in Canada.)

While I'm still planning on focusing on my usual blog topics, I am guessing I won't be able to resist talking a bit about this journey as well. Just a heads up. ;)

Quick edit: This is actually not me in the photo (though I wouldn't mind it!). It's just a nice photo I found on Flickr. I'm actually not even showing yet!

What I'm Asking My Arts and Social Sciences Students to Know

2011-06-15T12:09:00.000-04:00

There are just two more days of class left for my Introduction to Computers for Arts and Social Sciences course. In each of these classes, there is a quiz for students to write. I wanted to share the first three quizzes they've already done because it gives a pretty good overview of what I've asked them to know and how well they've done.

Checking exams... by Shemer

Each quiz is out of 5 and is worth 5% on the final grade. The idea of having a quiz on each topic was to help the students keep on track and to give them feedback often so they had a sense of how they were doing.

The first quiz was on programming concepts in Scratch. It had the following questions:

What programming concepts do you need to run one block(s) of code if an event occurs, and another block(s) of code if it doesn’t? Include an example.
Explain the difference between variables and what is stored in variables. Using an analogy might help.
Explain how ‘broadcast’ works in your own words. What happens on the stage when you use broadcast?

The students did well on this quiz, achieving an average of 3.8 and a rather high median of 4.5. Based on this, I figured I could make the next quiz on binary numbers a little harder:

How do you get from 11111 to 100000, both in binary? How can this knowledge make it easier to find 11111 in decimal?
How many different values (numbers) can be represented by 6 bits?
Describe the two ways of representing raster images shown in class.
Describe when a vector image is more suitable than a raster image.

The first question was definitely the trickiest, but it was something I had shown in class (though not in the notes). I used it because it really got the students to think and forced them to go beyond simply memorizing how to convert binary numbers to decimal. Unfortunately, more than half the class failed the quiz, which meant that they really didn't understand. Many students didn't even get the second question, which should have been straight forward.

I decided to give them a make-up opportunity because I wanted them to really try to understand these topics rather than accept a poor grade and forget about it. They got the new slightly harder questions in the next class and had just over 24 hours to submit their answers via email to one of the TA's. They were allowed to work together on the answers as long as they wrote up their own answer in the end. These were the make-up questions:

Suppose you want to store numbers no larger than 500 in decimal as binary numbers. What is the smallest number of bits required to accomplish this? How many bytes would you need?
Decimal has ten digits (0-9) and binary has two (0-1). You can create any number system in a similar way. Given this, convert this octal (8 digits, 0-7) number into decimal: 721
Suppose we are representing a greyscale raster image by describing each pixel with one byte. Propose a way to compress this image when there is repetitive data.
Explain why we need vector image representation when working with 3D graphics. Be sure to explicitly say why raster images alone would not work.

These questions were based on notes but again required them to stretch their thinking just a little bit.

It turns out that only a third or so of the class bothered to submit the make-up quiz, which is a little disappointing. I don't have all the stats yet, but those who did submit seemed to improve their grade, now giving more than half the class a passing grade. So far both the average and the median of all quizzes (a mix of the old grades and the replacement grades) are 3.

Last week we had a quiz on algorithms. I've been teaching them three searching algorithms using the Battleships CS Unplugged activity (linear, binary, hash table), and three sorting algorithms (selection, insertion, and quick). These were the questions I asked:

Consider a paper phone book. Describe what type of information you would be looking for that would cause you to use each of the three types of searching (linear, binary, hash table).
Precisely describe the algorithm for selection sort. Be sure to include all details.
What’s the difference between selection and insertion sort?
Describe what can happen to cause Quicksort to be slower than normal and why it has that effect.

All of these questions could be answered using the notes directly, and we spent a fair amount of class time discussing the topics. The average on this quiz is 3.6 and the median is 4.

Our last two quizzes should be easier for these students than the first three. They will be on HCI and Open Source/Internet. Once these are factored in I think the quiz averages will be on target. To me, this proves that you can challenge students and go beyond the traditional "teach MS Office most of the term" without seeing their grades plummet.

Demoing Gram's House at Games for Change Festival 2011

2011-06-06T16:37:00.000-04:00

I'm very excited to announce that I'll be demoing Gram's House at this year's Games for Change Festival. Even though the game did not make it through the first round of the Imagine Cup game design competition, I knew there was something special about the overall design that hasn't quite been done before. And so, thanks to some awesome contacts, I now have an opportunity to get feedback on the demo we've made so far and maybe, if I'm lucky, find some collaborators who can help develop it further (after all, the best parts of the design never made it into the demo).

There are two things I'm really looking forward to at the festival. First, I'm demoing as part of the Games For Learning Institute's day. The main theme of the talks that day will be design patterns for educational games, something that will be very useful for me in my thesis research topic.

Second, the closing keynote is Jesse Schell. Ever since reading his Art of Game Design book, I've really looked up to him. Great writer and talented designer (I was sad when I got to the end of the book!). Even better, he seems to be a proponent of augmented reality, having spoken at the 2010 Augmented Reality Event. Can't wait to see him in person.

I won't be in NYC for long, but if you happen to be attending the Festival, I'd really love to meet up and talk educational games. Let me know!

Why Computer Science is Relevant No Matter What You're Teaching

2011-05-30T14:30:00.000-04:00

I had only half an hour to put forward my case. I wanted to convince the educators who attended a special CU-WISE event last week, Discover WISE, that no matter what subject they taught, they should throw a bit of computer science into the mix.

I started with a discussion on what computer science actually is. After all, so many people have a misconception that it was likely these science and technology teachers did, too. It didn't take long to get down to the real answer with this group (great bunch!), but it still had to be done. After brainstorming, I started with my usual "big fancy definition" from Wikipedia:

Computer science (or computing science) is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their implementation and application in computer systems.

("Bet that doesn't sound like something that would fit into your class!")

Then I gave my own take on what it was all about. This is the same list I show during outreach or even my Introduction to Computers for Arts and Social Sciences course.

It’s all about finding ways to figure stuff out.
What can be computed automatically?
How hard is it to compute?
What cool applications are there? (Like video games, Facebook, and more)
What’s the best way to set up a computer so it can do all this stuff fast?

Then I briefly showed them how computer science can connect to many different areas. In fact, I always say, give me anything you're interested in and I'll find a way to connect CS to it - after all, computers are everywhere! There's always a problem that can be solved with computing.

So why should these teachers care about teaching CS to their students? As the stats show, computer science is suffering greatly from a lack of females (and from people in general - some stats say that we won't have enough talent to fill jobs in the near future!). One of the reasons seems to be that girls never find out what CS really is. (I always ask the girls I do outreach with to tell me why they think there aren't more women in CS, and this is a reason they consistently offer.)

If students make it to the computer labs, it's usually to learn how to type or write reports or do research online. Only about half the teachers present said their school even had computer science classes, and I'm willing to guess that among the courses that do exist, many of those teaching them don't have a CS background. So even if girls were to make it into a high school "computer science" course, what impression are they likely to leave with? There's a good chance they will think CS is all about programming boring example programs that aren't relevant to them.

But if we can show how computing connects to the courses they are taking (you know, the ones they are actually passionate about), we might get a few girls interested in considering at least a minor in CS, if nothing else.

So I told the teachers about CS Unplugged, and showed how the various activities could fit into other classes from art to history to biology or physics. In fact, I even have a document I made that suggests some of these connections (though I've thought of many more since writing it). I told them they could ask for my help if they wanted to be able to do some of the activities on their own, or said they could invite CU-WISE to come to their classes and do some activities for them.

I know at least a few in attendance were convinced of my position. Here's hoping that we can start infiltrating non-CS classes with some good old fashioned CS fun, and that some students will get hooked in the process.

Storytelling in Education and Games

2011-05-25T11:09:00.000-04:00

Imagine bringing the magic of storytelling into your classroom. But not just any classroom - in your math classroom.

Storytelling @ Thurdays by kodomut

If that sounds strange to you, then you haven't been following the work of Dan Meyer. He's the guy that told us math classrooms need a makeover in his TEDxNYED talk. A recent blog post of his describes The Three Acts Of A Mathematical Story.

Act One: "Introduce the central conflict of your story/task clearly, visually, viscerally, using as few words as possible."
Act Two: "The protagonist/student overcomes obstacles, looks for resources, and develops new tools."
Act Three: "Resolve the conflict and set up a sequel/extension."

Besides the fact that I think this would work equally as well in computer science classrooms, it got me thinking about an idea I had a while back for educational games. There's a GRAND project called BELIEVE that's all about making it easier to tell stories in games:

Research to discover new mechanisms to allow game designers to create helpful allies and challenging opponents by generating scripts automatically can support authors in providing creative high-level direction to these agents. A multi-queue behavior architecture with prioritized interruptible and resumable independent and collaborative behaviours will be employed. BELIEVE will provide authors a library of highlevel behaviour, plot patterns, and game story idiom scripts for adaption to the story at hand.

When I heard about BELIEVE, my immediate thought was that we need something similar for educational games. We know narrative is important, but I don't think the standard mechanisms for storytelling in games would necessarily work. After all, there is a hidden agenda of actually teaching something specific. Once we figure out the secret formula for how to weave learning into a game in a way that is both fun and effective, it makes sense to create tools that help others get the same good results.

To tie it all together, I wonder if the techniques Dan uses can inform or influence how we tell stories with educational games. Something to think about the next little while.

Smaller Class Sizes Can Matter

2011-05-24T12:53:00.000-04:00

My Introduction to Computers for Arts and Social Sciences course usually has several hundred students when taught in the fall and winter (when I'm not teaching), but under 100 when I teach in the summer. So far I've had about 50 show up to each class. I'm finding this to be an ideal number when trying to engage the students in in-class discussion.

Joris holds court by Felix42 contra la censura

Even with a large group, I could definitely imagine doing a couple of the discussion exercises I've done with my students. For example, I recently did a "mock quiz" where I made up some questions on the programming concepts we talked about in class and got students to write their answers as best they could. Then I told them to discuss their answers with their neighbour(s) to find out where they needed to enhance their understanding.

The next step I took was to ask a few brave students to share their answers with the class. They did, and we corrected their understanding as needed. But then something interesting happened. Students felt comfortable asking more questions on the same topic, getting deeper and deeper and uncovering some really good points and clearing up some misconceptions I never would have known about otherwise. I was really impressed with the quality of the discussion that happened and know that it really helped the students as well.

I'm not convinced this would have happened in a room with 300+ students. Even being able to hear their questions or answers in a huge lecture hall would have been a struggle, and if my own experience is anything to go on, it's pretty intimidating to speak in front of that many fellow students. If we hadn't got past the "check with your neighbour" stage, I'm pretty sure there would have been many misconceptions still out there.

To me, this experience (among other similar ones) has really shown to me how valuable smaller class sizes can be, especially when teaching more technical topics.

What has your experience been? What kind of success have you had with questions and discussions in large lectures? Have you mostly had to stick to the lecture style and make it all one way?

Programming Concepts in Scratch

2011-05-18T13:50:00.000-04:00

On Monday I started my lessons on Scratch for my Introduction to Computers for Arts and Social Sciences class. My goal is for students to understand boolean values and if statements, loops, variables, and the broadcast mechanism.

These are my notes and slides. They assume a basic knowledge of the layout of Scratch and how the scripts work. You are welcome to use them if you would like.

Boolean Values

Anything inside a Scratch block with the angled ends is a boolean value. It represents something that, in the end, will be TRUE or FALSE. You can think of it as asking a question and answering either yes (TRUE) or no (FALSE).

Some examples in Scratch are the 'mouse down?' and '□ < □' blocks.

Boolean values can be combined or modified with and, or, and not blocks.

For the final boolean value of the and block to be TRUE, both the boolean values inside must be TRUE. If either (or both) is (are) false, then the whole thing is false.

For the or block to be TRUE, at least one of the two boolean values must be TRUE, but one can be FALSE. If both are FALSE then the whole thing is false.

The not block basically just gives the opposite value. If the boolean inside is TRUE, the result will be FALSE with not, and vice versa.

If Statements

The if blocks have little slots that are perfectly shaped for a boolean value.

The if block will check whether this boolean value is TRUE or FALSE. If it is TRUE, then the code tucked inside will run. Otherwise, it will not. In the example above, the 'meow' will play because 5 is indeed less than 6, but if we swapped the 5 and 6 then it would not play.

One type of if block also includes an else. In these blocks, the first section of code will run when the boolean is TRUE, but the second section of code will run if it is false.

Loops

When a loop starts, its code (shown in the image below as a star) will be run over and over until some kind of stopping condition is met.

The simplest kind of loop in Scratch is the forever loop. In this case, there actually is no stopping condition - the code inside will continue to run until the program tells the script to stop running (such as when the red stop sign is pressed on the stage).

Another kind of loop is the forever if. This loop also goes on forever like the forever loop, but the code inside will only run when the boolean value is TRUE. The loop will check every single time whether the boolean is TRUE, and it can be different each time. The loop will still keep going. In the example below, the meow will play, but only if the space bar is being held down.

A repeat loop allows you to say exactly how many times it will run. The stopping condition occurs when the code has run that many times.

The repeat until loop continues until the boolean value is TRUE. As soon as it is, the loop stops for good. It is possible to have the loop start and the boolean value to be TRUE right away. In this case, the code inside will never actually run even once.

Variables

Imagine you have a box that you label. You can put one thing in that box at a time, and check what's inside any time you like. That box is your variable.

In the example above, we named our variable myObject, which is like labelling our box with "myObject." To put something in the box, we use the set block. In this example, we're going to put the word earth into the box. We can then hide or show the variable in the Scratch stage if we want to.

Now we can check what's inside the box at any given time by accessing the variable. In the example below, we play a particular sound based on what's inside. Because we still have earth in the box, the meow will play, but the note will not.

If we want to, we can change what's inside the box by setting the variable again. When we do that, whatever used to be in the box is essentially tossed out or even destroyed - it is forgotten forever.

Broadcast

In Scratch you can broadcast a message any time you like. It's like shouting out to the world, "hey! something happened!" You can name your message anything you like, but it's a good idea to keep it meaningful so you remember how you intended to use it.

Other scripts, both within the same sprite that shouts the message and in other sprites altogether, can listen for that particular message and act upon it. They do this with the 'when I receive' block, specifying which message they care about. More than one script can receive the message; in this case, both scripts will start running at exactly the same time.

If a script doesn't really care about that particular message, that's fine - it can just ignore it. No harm is done.

One useful way a broadcast can be used is in a game. If the main character is keeping track of his own health, he might broadcast a message saying he's dead so the other sprites can react accordingly. Perhaps they will stop moving and a game over message will display.

Conclusion

To get a feel for all these ideas, practice is required. Try little code blocks and experiment by changing them and seeing what happens as a result. Scratch is super easy to manipulate and you never have to be afraid of breaking anything.

There is a great tutorial and example game by David Malan of Harvard University. I recommend working through it.

Teaching How to Think Computationally

2011-05-13T13:12:00.000-04:00

One of my three main objectives for this year's "Introduction to Computers for Arts and Social Sciences" course is to teach the class how to think computationally. It was a goal last year as well, but I did not attempt to articulate exactly what the concept of computational thinking actually meant to the students. This year I dedicated some time to the concept during the introductory class.

Thinking RFID by @boetter

The sources I found on Mark Guzdial's blog turned out to be quite useful in distilling what computational thinking really meant. I had started making slides based on the most recent definition put forward by Jeannette Wing, as blogged by Mark. I started my section with this quote:

Computational thinking enables you to bend computation to your needs. It is becoming the new literacy of the 21st century.

I was going to use the points under "Computational thinking for everyone means being able to:" but in the end the text seemed better suited to educators than to students.

Luckily, I remembered that the latest issue of CSTA Voice focused on computational thinking. The articles within were very useful and I ended up using their list of characteristics of being able to think computationally:

Formulating problems in a way that enables us to use a computer and other tools to help solve them;
Logically organizing and analyzing data;
Representing data through abstractions such as models and simulations;
Automating solutions through algorithmic thinking (a series of ordered steps);
Identifying, analyzing, and implementing possible solutions with the goal of achieving the most efficient and effective combination of steps and resources; and
Generalizing and transferring this problem solving process to a wide variety of problems.

With a bit of an example for each of these, I think the students got the main idea. I told them that learning some basic algorithms, how data is represented on the computer, and how to program in Scratch (all topics in our course) will get them thinking in this new way.

I observed in the next class how important trying to think this way would become for many of the students. It turns out that even in Microsoft Word, they are used to entering straight text and never using anything that you might call "codes." For example, many still use the "enter-enter-enter..." method to get to a new page rather than a page break, and many didn't about the built-in cross-referencing, table of contents generator, or citation system. Understanding how to make the computer make your life easier should be a huge benefit to them all.

Do you have any great resources for teaching students how to think computationally? How do you usually approach it? Have you found it hard to know whether you're actually succeeding?

2011 Mini-Course: Post-Course Survey Results

2011-05-11T11:01:00.000-04:00

Each year at the end of my mini-course, I give the girls a customized survey to try and find out what their attitudes are about computer science after experiencing it first hand. Naturally, I'm hoping that they see the subject in a new light!

Some of the most interesting results are shown below. I'm going to refrain from analyzing them in this post to make it easier for you to skim the results, and because many speak for themselves. You might find it interesting to compare them to last year's results.

"Was this course your first choice?"

Yes: 10
No: 8
Not sure: 2

"If no, did you enjoy it more than you expected?"

All 8 who answered no to the first question answered yes here

"Would you have signed up for this course if it wasn't just for girls?"

Yes: 13
No: 7

"Are you glad it was just for girls?"

Yes: 15
No: 1
I'm happy as long as I'm not the only girl: 4

"I enjoyed learning about what computer science was really all about."

Disagree: 1
Neutral or Don't Know: 2
Agree: 7
Strongly Agree: 10

"It was cool to see how many different areas of study can be connected to computer science."

Neutral or Don't Know: 2
Agree: 10
Strongly Agree: 8

"My confidence in my ability to use and understand computers has increased."

Disagree: 1
Neutral or Don't Know: 2
Agree: 8
Strongly Agree: 9

"I would consider computer science as a good career for me."

Disagree: 2
Neutral or Don't Know: 10
Agree: 4
Strongly Agree: 4

(This is an overall improvement from last year!)

"I am more likely to try computer science in high school or university after taking this course, or this course has confirmed my desire to do so."

Strongly disagree: 1
Disagree: 1
Neutral or Don't Know: 2
Agree: 10
Strongly Agree: 6

"I liked having a variety of practising female computer scientists and engineers help out in the lab."

Agree: 8
Strongly Agree: 12

"What topics and activities did you like the best in the mini-course?"

I liked all the topics and activities.
I liked working in the computer lab on games and learning how to work the software even if I did get stuck.
The role of females in computer science and in video games.
I really enjoyed learning about the career opportunities available in the computer science industry especially for girls.
Learning how to make video games and how girls are important in computer science.

(This is just a selection. Artificial intelligence came up several times as a favourite topic.)

2011 Mini-Course: Games Students Made

2011-05-09T15:04:00.000-04:00

This year's edition of my mini-course (Computer Science and Games: Just for Girls!) wound down at the end of last week. I made sure to get a copy of the girls' games and post them on my website, partially so they could share the executables with their friends, and partially so I could share them with you.

There's a pretty good mix here of games based on the various tutorials we looked at and original ideas. Some might be a bit buggy but I think they should all run.

Making 'Introduction to Computers for Arts and Social Sciences' Even More Awesome

2011-04-30T10:00:00.000-04:00

I'm getting ready to teach our introductory computer course for arts and social science majors again this summer. If you read my blog around this time last year, you already know that this course used to focus mostly on software usage with a very small dash of binary numbers and data representation thrown in.

Return to Washington Square Park, Aug 2009 - 69 by Ed Yourdon

While I'm all for helping these students learn the more advanced functionality of word processors and spreadsheets, I don't think it's really enough for a course that counts as a science elective. That's why I redesigned the course last year to include some actual computer science. I also made a big effort to help the students see how computer science was relevant to their own interests. This year I'm continuing with that theme while trying to make the content all the more awesome using the great feedback I managed to get from last year's students in an anonymous and informal survey.

I was originally hoping that those who taught in the fall and winter terms would use at least some of my material. Unfortunately, both instructors continued to use the old stuff. I can't entirely blame them - it would take a fair amount of work to dissect my material and figure out a way to present it as their own. I also had a lot of activities better suited to my smaller classes than their 300+ student lectures (I know how I would adapt it, but it's much easier to do that when you came up with the material in the first place). All this to say that as I am hoping I can adjust things just enough that others will be willing to give it a try.

I kept my objectives the same as last year:

Gain an appreciation of what computer science is and how it relates to the arts and social sciences.
Practice computational thinking.
Learn about the software and tools that will help you succeed in an undergraduate program.

I rearranged the topics a bit, but kept them mostly the same (though I do plan on expanding some, such as the HCI section):

Introduction to computer science and computational thinking
Introduction to Microsoft Word
Basic programming with Scratch
Binary numbers and data representation
Algorithms
Introduction to Microsoft Excel
Human-computer interaction
Introduction to Microsoft PowerPoint
Using the Internet effectively: useful software and tools
Open source software

Finally, these are the general assignments I have in mind:

Software tutorial in MS Word: choose software not presented in class that will be useful to them in the future and create a tutorial complete with screen shots, etc
Programming in Scratch: set up a couple of specific exercises for them to complete that will teach them conditionals/loops/variables/broadcast; have them complete an interactive project of their choice
Binary numbers, algorithms, and data representation: some conceptual questions followed by a couple of programming exercises in Scratch demonstrating the main concepts; some short Excel exercises
HCI and Internet: Choose an area of interest (hobby, degree major, etc) and propose a new piece of technology that could improve activities within that area; use the HCI concepts to explain why the technology is designed well; write a Word document and create a compelling PowerPoint presentation; set up a web page to showcase this work (worth a bit more than the other assignments as it involves more work)

With more opportunities for feedback through in-class quizzes and guest speakers from academia and industry, I'm confident that this course will be interesting and useful for those who choose to make the most of it!

Examples of Games that Teach CS Concepts and Programming

2011-04-28T09:53:00.000-04:00

In my previous post I introduced the fact that there weren't very many educational games that specifically aim to teach computer science concepts. Here I'll share my list so far, and see if you can add any new examples.

Video Games by Steven Andrew Photography

First let me share an interesting quote from a SIGCSE paper Digital gaming as a vehicle for learning:

During the past two years there has been a resurgence of interest in how to use digital games (e.g. video games, computer games and simulations) to support instruction in a variety of fields. The focus is on how to exploit the rich interactivity of 3-D, multiplayer virtual worlds. Computer science education has, for the most part, taken a different approach: rather than having our students play video games to learn concepts we ask them to build games to learn concepts.

This supports what I said previously: the use of games in CS education tends to centre on creating them rather than playing them. Again, I don't think this is a bad way to learn — I just think that there is also potential in playing games to learn some of the trickier topics.

Without further ado, here is the list of games and related programs/resources that I've collected so far. I haven't experienced them all directly, so the accuracy depends on those who suggested them.

CS Unplugged (not strictly games, but could be turned into games if desired)
Game2Learn (research group that focused on building games that teach CS concepts)
LearnMem1 (learn memory layout on a computer; can no longer find a link)
World of Goo (someone suggested it might indirectly cover some CS topics)
Manufactoria (sort of teaches Turing machines)
ToonTalk (gradually introduces children to constructs behind programming)
Karel the Robot (robot simulation that teaches programming)
Lightbot (use programmer style logic to solve puzzles)
999 on Nintendo DS (knowledge of hex numbers required)
Dr Brain games (Island of Dr Brain apparently had programming challenge)
RoboZZle (makes use of stacks)

Do you have any other examples? Does your example teach programming skills or more abstracted concepts?

Educational Games That Teach Computer Science

2011-04-25T10:18:00.000-04:00

There has been an increased interest in educational games lately — especially those that truly give the player a deeper understanding of a topic but are still fun in the process. History seems to be one of the topics that games have successfully tackled (see for instance several of the chapters in The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning), but other subjects, like math, are a bit trickier. Many math games often dress skill and drill practice with game mechanics, for instance, and it's not clear how effective they are.

Games at the Library by NJLA: New Jersey Library Association

I'm personally interested in games that help teach computer science. If students could play a few games either in class/lab or on their own and get a deeper understanding of topics like pointers right away, then perhaps the success rate would be higher and more students could be attracted to study CS in the first place.

When I did a search to see what games were already out there, I found something interesting. There were two types of results: first, games that taught programming logic directly or indirectly (e.g. Karel the Robot), and second, programs that helped teach CS concepts through making games (e.g. Kodu). The second category isn't quite what I was looking for, and the first category covers a fairly narrow range of actual computer science topics. Both are quite valuable in my opinion, but there's definitely a gap to be filled.

What I'd like to do is explore how we can make games in the same spirit as CS Unplugged activities, where specific high-level CS concepts are taught. I'd like to see if augmented reality would be a good interface to use. I'd start with first-year concepts because that would provide the largest audience (including non-majors), but it would be nice to tackle some of the more difficult topics as well.

Lessons from an Early 'QR Story Quest' Prototype

2011-04-20T11:08:00.000-04:00

I have been working on an iPhone app as I've had time over the last few months. It's essentially a platform to run what I call QR Story Quests, which are somewhat like traditional QR code scavenger hunts but with more structure. Instead of just finding objects in whatever order you want, you have to do things in a particular order that suits the game's story. In some parts of the story you might have to do a mini-scavenger hunt, and you sometimes have choice in terms of the path to take, but the overall story structure is well defined and enforced.

Since I was finally able to concentrate on this project in the last couple of weeks, I now have a fully working prototype. I created a little example game with a Zelda theme using objects and locations within my own house.

The general story idea is that you have just volunteered to battle the monsters that have been terrorizing your town's cattle herds. You first have to equip yourself with a shield (found in the wooden box) and ask the local swordsmith to create you a weapon. The swordsmith needs you to find a certain set of materials, leading you through a mini-scavenger hunt where each clue leads you to a related real-world object (such as tinfoil for the metal to create the sword out of). Once equipped, you are off the find the mother beast and slay her (I used clues related to our cat to help the player find the correct locations). You have a choice in terms of where you look for her, and each path is slightly different.

I asked my husband Andrew to play the game last night. Through observing him and asking him about it afterwards, I learned the following:

Multiplayer would make the game a lot more interesting on a larger scale (while he enjoyed the prototype well enough, he had all kinds of ideas for similar games with both collaboration and competition, and was most excited about those).
The QR code library worked really, really well. Andrew admitted to purposely making it difficult, but the scanner managed to read the codes most of the time. Only when the image got unreasonably blurry from movement or low light did it fail. (I am using the ZBar bar code reader library, so kudos to them!)
I thought the UI for the prototype might have garnered some complaints, but it did not. I worried there were too many button pushes to go from the main story node to a scavenger hunt list to an individual item to the code scanning, but that didn't seem to be a problem at all.
Andrew said that the existence of QR codes in places they wouldn't normally be changed the way he looked for the next location or item. Still, when I observed him, he really did use the clue to figure out where to go - whether there was a code there only confirmed whether he was right. An approach without codes (i.e. based on location or natural feature recognition) might help alleviate this, but whether you want to may depend on the goals of the game (or even one part of the game).
Related to this, Andrew felt that the story and reality were fairly separate since the objects were not represented exactly in the story (even if they had a fairly close mapping). I figure this isn't necessarily a bad thing - it again depends on what the goals of the game are.

Based on all this, it looks like the main considerations at this point are more related to content than technology. However, to make multiplayer a reality, I will need to do some code redesign, so that's what I'm working on now. I'm planning on adding the concept of teams, player roles, and virtual items. Stay tuned!

CRA-W Grad Cohort: Non-academic Career Paths

2011-04-15T10:26:00.058-04:00

Becoming a professor isn't the only option after getting your PhD. There are plenty of non-academic options in both research and non-research areas. Take a look at the following advice from the 2011 CRA-W Grad Cohort and consider your options.

Options

Software/hardware or services companies
Start-ups
Research labs
Other industries (such as banking, insurance, telecom, etc)

Your thesis may need to be shaped to suit industry if you are considering any of these options. It is also important to do internships for both the experience and to see what kinds of positions you might be interested in.

What Might Get You Hired

Having a PhD means you are intelligent, analytic, are persistent, and can work on a big project
Your specific skills might be desirable or just these characteristics

Things to Consider When Choosing Research vs. Non-research

Prototyping vs. industry-quality code
Creative ideas vs. coding
Are you interested in well-defined goals and project deliverables? Deep technical support and debugging? Working on deep research problems?
Publishing vs. patenting
Do you want the option of returning to academia?
What pace of career growth do you prefer? Hierarchies in research labs are pretty flat - expect more promotions in non-research

Things to Consider When Choosing Academic vs. Non-academic

Unlike academia, there is a wide variety of how jobs work in industry
Network to find out the culture of various options
If you want flexibility to go in and out of research, consider a company with research arms so you can switch groups (but note that it can be hard to go from R&D to research unless you publish)

Preparing for Non-academic Careers

Try to do at least one internship:

experience counts a lot
adds credibility to real-world connections with your thesis
gets you contacts

Build your professional network, make yourself visible
Build a list of references
Keep your web presence up-to-date (such as a website with your publications)

Becoming a Leader

Increase your technical breadth and depth
Determine what your research brand will be
Up your credentials (patents, publications, awards)
Hone your communication skills (be correct, concise, clear, and able to match form and style to the occasion)
Build your basic skills: business sense, prioritization, analytic and negotiation skills, leading without power
Have good character

Do you have specific advice for choosing between academia and industry, and how to prepare for the latter?

CRA-W Grad Cohort: Research Proposals

2011-04-13T19:21:00.001-04:00

What exactly is a research proposal and how do you prepare a good one? The following advice, given at the 2011 CRA-W Grad Cohort, is mainly intended for your PhD thesis proposal, but can apply to other research proposals as well.

What is a PhD Proposal?

Not the end product but rather the brainstorming and planning part of the process
A succinct write-up of your proposed research goals, strategies, justifications, and contributions
Allows you to get feedback from your committee
Helps you focus

General Process

Use your abstract to recruit your committee members
Write the proposal and iterate with your supervisor (length will depend on department)
Give the proposal to the committee after your supervisor agrees it's ready
Prepare a lot, reduce nervousness
Present the proposal to committee
Expect hard questions to follow

Makeup of the Committee

Supervisor
Faculty in topic area
Faculty outside topic area (great for high level feedback)
External member (possibly in your area - good chance for networking)

Role of the Committee

Gives you guidance, feedback, and eventually reference letters
They make sure you know your stuff at the defence, that you have thought about the issues, that the work will be novel and important enough for a PhD, and that your techniques are sound

Goals of Proposal: Be Sure You Clearly Answer These Questions

What problem are you studying?
Why is it important?
What results have you achieved so far and why do they matter?
How substantially different is your approach from prior work?
How will you systematically evaluate your results?
What do you need to complete the work?

Before You Start Writing

Figure out what you want to accomplish
Write a succinct thesis statement or hypothesis
Discuss your ideas with others
Present parts of thesis at seminars, conferences, etc
Think about 3-4 major contributions or papers
Formulate your contributions in writing
Think about your audience (they are not aware of the prior work, your skills, etc), and provide the appropriate background, terminology, and so on
Figure out how the state of the art relates to your problem

Presentation Tips

Attend other proposal/thesis defences
Thank the committee
Introduce yourself and your background
Practice!!
Be polite about interruptions for questions
Ask someone to take note of the questions asked
Remember that it's ok to not have an answer to a question, and to ask for help and direction

Anyone have any more specific tips, especially for the big day of the defence?

A Fortnight in Boston, Massachusetts

2011-04-11T21:29:00.002-04:00

I recently had the fortunate opportunity to participate in the CRA-W Grad Cohort for a third and final time. I love this program because not only do we get to meet a lot of amazing women grad students in computer science and get some really valuable advice on grad school, we also get to visit some really neat places. Last year's event was in Seattle, and the year before that in San Francisco. This time around it was held in Boston, and I loved learning all about this incredible city in every spare moment we had!

One of the highlights was the Freedom Trail Walking Tour. I must admit that I am not terribly familiar with American history, but no matter - on this tour I learned how it all began! The stories behind the American Revolution were as exciting as they were interesting. (Our amazing tour guide in full period costume probably had something to do with that.)

Stepping onto the USS Constitution, build in the 18th century, was also something else. Sure, a lot of the wood would have been replaced as it rotted, but it's still the same ship built all those years ago - at least in spirit! I can't help but imagine all those men who fought on this Navy Frigate, and I can't help but notice how much I would hate to have been one of them.

Finally, before heading home, we made sure to stop by Harvard and MIT. At MIT we stumbled on a public panel called The Veritas Forum. We arrived when it was more than half over, so we only saw the moderator ask questions from her iPad as the audience tweeted them. The four panellists were MIT professors - two Christian, and two atheist - who debated over issues of religion. It was so refreshing to see a respectful and insightful discussion on the subject. We even met a French exchange student questioning his own faith after the talk, and had a real intellectual conversation with him. MIT is definitely a place I feel like I could fit into.

We didn't have much time to spend at Harvard, and it was past dark. It was neat to stop by the main square after seeing the campus in so many movies. We also checked out Memorial Hall, but could only see the lobby as a concert was going on at the time. We explored the basement where a student-run pub lay hidden in the depths. I struck up a bit of a conversation with the bartender to get a feel for what students are like there. (As you might expect, they are really no different than anywhere else.)

I was pleasantly surprised with how much I liked Boston, and since it's actually relatively close to home, I think I might try to bring my husband there for a visit in the next few years.

Last Minute Preparations for our Celebration of Women in Science and Engineering

2011-04-05T17:32:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow is our second annual Carleton Celebration of Women in Science and Engineering, hosted by CU-WISE. This is an event I came up with last year after attending Grace Hopper. I wanted to emphasize women "doing stuff" rather than focusing only on the problem of too few women in science and engineering. We had research, outreach, and professional development talks followed by a speaker's dinner where some amazing networking took place.

This year, I wanted to take it a step further. I put out a call to high school girls, inviting them to attend the talks and a speaker's lunch where they could network and be mentored.

Although most outreach events have hands-on components and we weren't able to fit any in to this event, our speakers know that their talks are to be geared toward the level of understand of these students.

As a result, anyone outside of your own discipline, be it the general public or even students in a totally different area of science/engineering, will be able to understand and get excited. I've been encouraging the speakers to look at TED and TEDx talks for inspiration and ideas (particularly the video below from TEDxCarletonU).

During our lunch, we will also have some robots from the robotics club, and hopefully some Snap Circuits to play with. Plus one of our talks will be a dissection demo! Cool!

Putting this event together was more stressful for me than last year, given how much more is involved with the venue and the inclusion of high school students. (For example we almost ended up not having chairs for the audience!!) But I think it's all coming together now.... which means I should get started on my own talk, "What do soap operas and video games have to do with women in computer science?";)

I'll let you all know how it goes!

The Nicol Challenge and My Latest Idea for Girls, Computer Science, and Games

2011-03-30T12:12:00.000-04:00

On a whim, I entered the Carleton Nicol Challenge and was thrilled to make it to the Top 8. I pitched my idea in front of a panel of judges (apparently in Dragon's Den fashion, not that I watch the show). I didn't make the top three, but am perfectly happy with this first attempt at any sort of entrepreneurial competition.

My pitch was titled Girls and Computer Science: Increasing Interest Through Stories and Games. It's similar in some ways to our recent Imagine Cup game, Gram's House (which sadly did not make it past round one). However, there are some key differences, such as focusing on a novel with an accompanying app rather than a stand-alone game.

There are many outreach initiatives, and the main themes that appear in most include ensuring girls and women know what computer science actually is (e.g. it is not about learning how to use software), that life in computer science is not what the stereotype portrays, and that you can make a difference in society with computing.

In my pitch, I proposed the creation of a mobile app / novel combo designed to tell a compelling story about computing through story and games, thus encouraging middle and early high school girls to see the field in new light.

The most important aspect of this proposal is the story told to the users. This story must be targeted to the audience of 12-15 year old girls and paint a positive image of computer science. The girls must be able to relate to at least one of the main characters so they can imagine themselves in their shoes. In other words, the story should encourage the girls to project their identities into those of computer science students, a concept explained by video games and learning expert James Paul Gee. If done right, these identities can transcend into the real world and help counteract the many reasons that girls are not entering the field.

While the story helps with the image problem the field of computer science faces, it doesn’t necessarily show the readers specifically what computer science is.

For this reason, mini-games relating to computer science problems will be introduced throughout the story via a QR code that can be scanned by a mobile device. These games will be closely related to the problems that the main characters have to solve for homework and for personal endeavours outside of class. On the surface they will appear to be puzzle games (one of the most popular game genres for middle school females according to research), but of course a meaningful connection to real computer science theory will be made, showing that computer science problems are actually fun and interesting.

Another key aspect is to emphasize that computer science can be used for social good. The focus is not on the computer or programming itself, but on making a difference with these tools. Research has shown that girls do indeed care about social good, so these games are an opportunity to connect the technical aspects with the impact they can make.

During the question period of my pitch, I was asked how much money I would need to get this going. The truth is that what I really need is time. I have all the tools and resources to accomplish this, but no time to do it. Maybe it can be one of my post-grad projects. On the other hand, if anyone out there wants to collaborate with me very closely to get this done sooner, I'd love to hear from you. ;)

The Difference One Woman Can Make

2011-03-25T12:08:00.000-04:00

I was at the Board of Advisers meeting for the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI) last week in Mountain View when it struck me just how much of a difference one person can make.

Anita Borg, like so many others, saw the lack of women in computer science and decided to do something about it. But she's among the relatively few who have been able to truly make a difference. (That's not to say there aren't other amazing organizations doing good work, such as CRA-W and NCWIT. I'm focusing on ABI because it's the one I know the best.)

It struck me how amazing this is when one of the board members, a professor of computer science, commented on just how much we have been able to influence our field. Reflecting on just those initiatives I've been able to participate in, I can list quite a few that are directly related to ABI: Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship, Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, Systers, ABI Ambassadors, and a wonderful online community of technical women.

Other male-dominated fields might have "women in X" workshops and other programs, but nothing like what we've got. Change is happening in computer science, even if the pace is slow.

The biggest takeaway is this: It is possible to make a difference, even if all you have is yourself and a good idea. You just have to get started, build a team, and find your allies. And most importantly, never give up.

So what are you going to change?

Patty Azzarello on Succeeding While Loving Life

2011-03-22T18:19:00.000-04:00

The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI for short) Board of Advisers meeting last week was really inspirational. On the morning of the second day, we were treated to a talk by Patty Azzarello based on her new book Rise: How to be Really Successful at Work AND Like Your Life. Even though the focus was on life in industry, I felt like there was a lot of advice I could apply to my own situation.

Business girl by Éole

The main theme was that "just working hard doesn't work." In your career, it's easy to think that it's all about your expertise. And it kind of is... at the beginning. But then there's more to it.

It's not about politics, promotions, or raises — it's about how you approach your work.

There are three main things you should be doing / thinking about: aim to do better (have more impact), look better (be visible but not annoying), and connect better (get support). Next are some tidbits on each of these.

Do Better

Be less busy. Nobody has motivation to make you less busy other than you.
Know what the business values.
Be wary of the trap of being a workhorse. Although it might feel like the right thing, the only reward is more work. (Incidentally, this is one reason I don't believe in working overtime regularly.)
Rise above the work and learn to delegate.
Create processes and systems.
Defend your time and be ruthless about priorities.
Evolve your job in order to add business value, and change it to suit you better. The better you make your career, the more value you will end up giving your company.

Look Better

Don't be invisible, but never put politics before getting results.
You don't need to have a big personality to succeed. Humility is ok. Build credibility as you.
People with high credibility get more done, and are asked fewer (potentially dumb!) questions.
Don't educate others about what you do. Instead, use the language of the business, and connect the dots to your own work for those you speak to.
You have a brand that is defined by others. Ask yourself if it's what you want. It should show who you are, why you are good, and what you care about. A package of skills is boring. (Patty talks about brand-building on her blog.)

Connect Better

The biggest impact on your career will come from having a mentor.
Don't be afraid to get help. Build your team and never struggle alone.
Build relationships.
When networking, give more than you take, meet people for a reason, and keep in touch with people you know. (During the talk I mentioned how I use Facebook to do this when someone asked how to find the time to keep in touch.)
Schedule 30 minutes a month to send personal emails to your contacts.
Get on "the list." There is always a list. Find it and get on it.

---

Want more? I definitely recommend picking up the book. I'll be reading it myself, since Patty was kind enough to give us all a copy. There is much more detail and lots of great stories in there, so it's totally worth the purchase.

My Great Canadian Appathon Experience

2011-03-15T11:19:00.000-04:00

This past weekend was the Great Canadian Appathon, a 48-hour game design and development competition. I was on Team Harmony with some of the guys who helped out with Gram's House, our Imagine Cup game. We'd already worked together before, so I had high hopes for the weekend. I was not disappointed!

Photo by Jennifer Pagliaro, from the National Post

This was the first hackathon event I'd ever participated in. I really enjoyed the atmosphere in the little classroom all the on-site teams worked in. Everyone was friendly and having fun. As great as this was, it was also very distracting in terms of writing code. I didn't get much done Friday night as a result. I tried to keep my headphones on all day Saturday, and on Sunday I decided to save commuting time and work from home. Though this meant fewer distractions, I didn't get to see the final game on an actual Windows Phone 7 device. (I was at least able to try it out in the emulator.)

Something else I noticed is just how often we changed our game concept throughout the weekend. And we weren't the only ones - it looks like most teams did that, too! Our final concept was called Sandscape, a fluid simulation puzzle game that has you scratching trenches in the sand, and tilting the phone to get certain colours of fluid into various goal drains. This is pretty different from the Chinese-philosophy-based tile flipping game we originally designed in preparation for the competition.

As usual, I was one of the only girls participating. There was a female volunteer and a female artist on one team, but I was the only coder working on site (turns out a friend was also developing, but her team worked completely from home so I never saw her). This was noticed, so the National Post journalist assigned to Carleton wrote an article about me:

Gail Carmichael is accustomed to being something of an anomaly.

It’s not because the 27-year-old computer science PhD student is wired-in to her Acer laptop at the Carleton University hub for the Great Canadian Appathon, sporting a blue “You had me at Hello World” t-shirt.

It’s because she’s the only female coder in the small classroom.

You can read the whole article online.

Overall, I'm quite happy with how the competition went. I'm glad most of us were able to keep to a normal sleep schedule, and that we managed to submit a complete game. No matter what happens with the judging, we have something we can be proud of. That, in my books, is success.

Met a Girl from My First Ever Mini-Course Yesterday

2011-03-10T12:28:00.000-05:00

I went to Almonte and District High School yesterday for a pilot project called Futures Fair. Community members were invited to give workshops and mock university lectures to students who could sign up for the topics they were interested in. I did my usual computer science stuff, this time talking about how artificial intelligence and computer graphics are used in games.

One of the coolest things was seeing a girl from my very first mini-course Computer Science and Games: Just for Girls! four years ago. She was in grade nine then, and grade twelve now. She was so excited to see me, and still totally enthusiastic about the CS stuff I talked about and the activities we did. She showed good understanding of the material, too. It was awesome!

Of course, I then had to ask her what she had applied for at university. I secretly crossed my fingers it would be something technical.

Her answer?

Political science and law.

(Needless to say I was sad. I did at least tell her she could consider a minor in CS.)

Introducing Gram's House, Our Imagine Cup 2011 Game for Girls and Computer Science

2011-03-07T16:29:00.001-05:00

Computer science is still a gender-imbalanced field. Outreach efforts by various non-profits and companies like Microsoft seem to make an impact on this issue. Inspired by this, we designed Gram’s House to reach an even larger audience of middle school girls. We believe that encouraging more girls to participate in computer science has the power to help those who are lesser privileged see new career possibilities and improve their situation. Furthermore, a diverse computing community will be in a better position to solve many of tomorrow’s problems, from education to the environment to health care.

In Gram’s House, the player takes on the role of a computer scientist. She wants to ensure her grandmother can stay in her house, so she uses her skills to outfit the place with technology Gram can use to remain independent. Each piece of technology must be activated by solving a computer science related puzzle, ranging from binary numbers to theorems to algorithm design. The first technology is a mail ordered robot, and subsequent technologies are obtained through a simple questing mechanisms. In the next version, a world map will allow players to travel to different areas of the city, and will provide opportunities for collaboration with other computer scientists and engineers. The player must balance Gram’s independence with her satisfaction with the various machines and devices collected.

The story of Gram’s House is meant to give the girls playing it an emotional investment in the problems they are trying to solve. Research has shown that girls do indeed care about making a social difference.

While point and click puzzlers are nothing new, they are well loved by middle school girls. The combination of a compelling story, puzzles, and learning real computer science topics is something new and exciting that could make a big impact on the game world and the field of computer science.

Watch the game video below and download an installer to try the game yourself. I'd love to get your feedback!

One Positive Thing, Martial Arts, and Hitting the Proverbial Wall

2011-03-04T11:11:00.001-05:00

The other day I read Cate's post on One Positive Thing:

The power of sustained small achievements is underrated. If every day I did one positive thing for my health, my living space, and my relationship, what would my world look like a month, six months, a year from now?

I love this concept. If you're ever feeling overwhelmed, whether by grad school, work, or just life, focus on one positive thing you can do. Chances are, other good things will follow, but even if they don't you still have that one positive thing.

After reading this, I immediately thought about a technique I've been using in my Taekwondo training recently. I've been trying to push myself more - just ten more pushups, 30 more speed kicks, better patterns, whatever. Whenever I have hit the proverbial wall, I have been doing one of two things.

One is to think of Bruce Lee and how much he was able to push himself. I remember the story about someone being pushed to run just a little more by Lee and think of that. For some reason it gives me a jolt of energy and desire to succeed.

The other is yoga breathing. The other day doing 100 speed kicks on each leg was suddenly so much more feasible when I focused on deep breathing and keeping my body calm - it's like my leg was doing its own thing and I didn't even think about the fatigue.

These ended up being my "one positive thing" for Taekwondo. Now that I'm thinking about the concept, I'll be watching for opportunities to use it whenever I get frustrated or lose confidence in my research. There is always something small I can focus on that I can accomplish quickly, whether it's directly related to the area I'm being frustrated by or not. And who knows, maybe some yoga breathing will do the trick. ;)

What do you do when you hit the proverbial wall?

Great Canadian Appathon

2011-03-02T09:51:00.000-05:00

Carleton's Game Development Club is one of six host schools for the upcoming Great Canadian Appathon:

The Great Canadian Appathon is a chance for post-secondary students across Canada to showcase their skills in developing great games. Students can get together in teams of up to 4 people to hack their game together for 48 hours. The event is presented by XMG Studio and the National post. The Prizes are being sponsored by TELUS and the finale event is being sponsored by KPMG.

A few friends of mine were hoping I would join their team, and yesterday I finally decided that I would. (I was a little worried about time because there are a few projects I have to wrap up in the next couple of months, but this looks like a really fun opportunity I don't want to miss.)

This is supposed to be one of those hackathon-type events where you work for 48 hours straight to come up with a game programmed completely within the allotted time. I've never participated in any of these before. The closest I've come is the one all-nighter we pulled for our school's notorious software engineering class project. (And that's the only all-nighter I've ever done in my life!) I'm a little nervous about it because that's not really how I work usually. My eye problems alone make it impossible to work all night.

Luckily, it sounds like the plan is to design as much of the game ahead of time as possible, and maybe even prototype it. Then the idea is to have us work in shifts with partners, so those who like working at night can. According to the Appathon's rules, you don't even have to be on campus - you can work online if you want. I don't know if it's a gender thing or just because we're getting older, but I personally really appreciate this flexibility.

The competition is happening March 11-13, so I'll post about our experience after that. In the meantime, if you happen to be a student, consider giving it a shot yourself!

Perspective and Spatial Relationships for Interface Design

2011-02-26T10:54:00.000-05:00

Did you ever notice the moment we went from having a maximum of two monitors on our desktop side-by-side to having multiple displays, such as monitors and mobile devices, sitting on our desk in less static configurations? In some cases, we may additionally have the opportunity to interact with large wall displays and collaborative tabletop surfaces. But these displays are usually pretty disconnected from each other, and even when they are used together, there's no easy way to configure them.

Photo from Dr. Nacenta's personal webpage

It turns out that “small changes in basic interaction issues can have effects on interface use,” and “perspective affects input and output.” This was the main premise of HCI researcher Dr. Miguel A. Nacenta's talk held at Carleton yesterday.

Miguel has researched some interesting aspects of tabletop use in the past. For instance, some of his experiments determined what kind of interactions results in the most conflicts (i.e. grabbing the same virtual item) between multiple users. What happens at an input level really affects how users behave.

The main project he described stemmed from the fact that technologies really haven’t caught up with the view space that we have between multiple screens, smart phones, and so on. For example, where you are sitting relative to screens not placed on the same plane determines which one appears to the left, and which to the right. Even worse, if you use a cursor that can move between, say, a tabletop display and a regular monitor sitting on top of it, the jump between the physical boundaries will be very obvious. The perspective of the cursor on the tabletop is very different from on the monitor.

Enter the "perspective cursor." Instead of moving in the separate coordinate spaces of the two planar surfaces, the cursor moves in a spherical coordinate space that can be reprojected appropriately to each display. This results in seamless movement between the displays. If the user's head is additionally tracked, the perspective can be corrected based on where they are looking.

Photo from Dr. Nacenta's personal webpage

There are all kinds of interesting things you can do to correct display perspective once you start tracking users' viewpoints, and this tracking has never been easier with hardware like the Kinect. Check out Miguel's research and publications to see some of the other cool projects he's been working on.

Unlocking the Clubhouse for Women in Computing

2011-02-22T13:50:00.001-05:00

I spoke at the most recent book club session put on by Carleton's IEEE-WIE, WIL, and CU-WISE. At these sessions, attendees don't need to have read the book; rather, the presenter discusses what a particular book was about and why everyone should read it. I chose to present Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing by Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher.

As part of my preparation, I went through the book and collected what I felt were the key quotes (I had actually read it the first time a long time ago). It was amazing to see how much of what we do with CU-WISE is supported by the research in the book. I'm sure I got many of my ideas from this source, but had forgotten where it came from. Now I can point to it when I need to justify how some of our money is spent.

It was also invigorating to talk about what I wish I had time to do with regard to supporting local teachers in including computer science in their curriculum, improving computer science classes in high schools, and simply recruiting more girls into these classes. Maybe one day I'll be able to concentrate more fully on that.

In addition to a handout that I made for attendees (see below), I put my notes together in a document that I am now sharing publicly. I also included my own list of resources at the end. I recommend taking a look, especially if you would like to see a shorter version of what we need to do to get more women into computing. (If you're really short on time, focus on chapters seven and eight). You might also be interested in the write-up I did about a talk on outreach by NCWIT at Grace Hopper.

[My notes on Unlocking the Clubhouse]

Procedural Rhetoric in Games

2011-02-17T16:26:00.002-05:00

In the Carleton Game Dev Club meeting last week, a member showed a video from the Escapist series Extra Credit. Called Narrative Mechanics, this episode was all about how video games can tell a story through its mechanics alone, with no words at all.

The video and the discussion following it reminded me of Ian Bogost's concept of procedural rhetoric. I first learned about this type of rhetoric (different from the traditional idea of persuasive speech or the more modern version of artistic or visual rhetoric) in Ian's chapter of The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning.

This is Ian's definition of procedural rhetoric:

I suggest the name procedural rhetoric for the practice of using processes persuasively, just as verbal rhetoric is the practice of using oratory persuasively and visual rhetoric is the practice of using images persuasively. Procedural rhetoric is a general name for the practice of authoring arguments through processes. Following the classical model, procedural rhetoric entails persuasion—to change opinion or action. Following the contemporary model, procedural rhetoric entails expression—to convey ideas effectively. Procedural rhetoric is a subdomain of procedural authorship; its arguments are made not through the construction of words or images, but through the authorship of rules of behavior, the construction of dynamic models. In computation, those rules are authored in code, through the practice of programming.

The description certainly seems to fit with the ideas presented in the Extra Credits video.

Members of our lab recently played a couple of sessions of Agricola, a popular board game by Uwe Rosenberg. As Wikipedia describes it:

The goal of the game is to build the most well-balanced farm at the end of 14 rounds, consisting of plowed fields for crops and fenced pastures for livestock. The farm should have little fallow land and a large farmhouse built of high quality material. The player should also expand the family tending the farm from its initial two members to a maximum of five.

One of the comments that came up about the game was how frustrating it was that as the game progressed, we could never do all the things we wanted to do. For example, many of us had plans to expand our house or get more livestock, but suddenly realized that a round was almost over, and thus we would soon have to feed our families. So we had to drop everything and make sure we found enough food. We learned a lot about how to use our resources effectively.

Just like that, the rules of the game provided us a pretty compelling story about the difficult experiences of farming without saying a single word about it. Procedural rhetoric at work.

Have you ever played a board game that gave you a similar rhetorical experience?

Communication and Presentation Skills in Computer Science

2011-02-15T11:01:00.000-05:00

In my TA workshop yesterday on communication skills, we had a discussion/brainstorm session that I captured in a document (shown on the projector) as we went along. Here are those notes, as well as some other resources that were mentioned during the workshop.

Communication and Presentation Skills
(compiled during the workshop)

General tips

Good volume but not shouting
Know your audience (knowledge level)
Visual aids (diagrams, etc)
Flow is important – don’t want to spend too long on a simple idea
Keep on time, use the right amount of time explaining topics
Give yourself time to prepare the presentation – know when to stop
Memorize the first few minutes of a presentation

Communicating in lectures

Build up to the more detailed information, build up to the big idea
How does what we’re doing now relate to where we’re going and where we’ve been
Beyond the slide

Open Data Ottawa: Pass around napkins, give audience a couple of minutes to write ideas, pass along, etc

Could apply to lectures as well to engage audience, or to let students find out where their peers are at in terms of understanding; coming up with project ideas

Use chalkboard to demonstrate algorithms in progress

Using chalkboard keeps people engaged/alert as they have to write, help remember it

Conference presentations

Right level of detail

No point in going into very complicated equations when people can’t process that much information

Distill down to the very basic information – if someone wants to know more they will look at the paper
Instead of showing pseudo code, break the process down into visual slides
“An academic talk is about an idea, not a paper.”

How do you bring your topic down to the bare essentials? (goes for lectures as well as conferences)

Think about motivation or application
Inspiration: TED Talks spend most of their time motivating – why does it matter?
Find a way to relate it to another type of problem that the audience understands
Think about rhetorical goals

What’s the difference between written and oral communication?

During an oral presentation, we need to help the audience know where they are, whereas on paper they always have everything in front of them
Written: organization and space, Oral: time

What works well in a textbook is often opposite from what works in oral presentations
Essays can be more like an oral presentation (opinion pieces etc)

Written: visual formatting, etc, Oral: how you say it

When you have on your slides what would normally be on paper, rethink what you’re doing
Example: put up an equation on the slide while explaining the motivation – bad!!

Written work will last many years, but oral presentations are not necessarily meant to (not in the same way) – you don’t need to plan them in such a way

Communicating Solutions to Equations
(presented during workshop by a senior TA)

Based on the second lecture from the course: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/chemistry/5-95j-teaching-college-level-science-and-engineering-spring-2009/
Direct approach: formal, short, jargon, give the facts
Story mode: build the context, share stories about the researchers, reproduce the research process (how they ended up solving it)

Will stop occasionally to give the formal definitions and equations
Be able to add examples on the fly

Video shows example using sorting algorithm

Communication Skills for Computer Science Students (CSTA)
http://blog.acm.org/archives/csta/2009/04/communication_s.html

Opening
1. Does your opening gain the group's attention?
2. Does it establish rapport with the group?
3. Does it indicate what you intend to explain?

The Key Points
1. Are your key points clearly expressed?
2. Are your examples interesting?
3. Are your qualifications of the key points clearly expressed?
4. Is each key point summarized?
5. Are the summaries clear?
6. Are the beginnings and ends of the key points clearly indicated?

The Summary
1. Does the summary bring together the main points?
2. Are your conclusions clearly stated?
3. Do you come to an effective stop?

Presenting
1. Can the group hear and see you?
2. Do you use eye contact to involve but not threaten?
3. Do you use audio/visual techniques effectively?
4. Are you fluent verbally?
5. Is your vocabulary appropriate for the group?
6. Do you make use of pauses and silences?
7. Do you vary your intonation?
8. Is the organization of your material clear?
9. Do you avoid vagueness and ambiguities?
10. Is the presentation as interesting as you can make

10 tips for academic talks (Matt Might’s Blog)
http://matt.might.net/articles/academic-presentation-tips/

Since my own students are starting to give talks now, I thought I'd share what I've learned (the hard way) over the years:

1. The audience determines the talk.
2. Practice almost makes perfect.
3. Nervous energy is exploitable.
4. Every talk should motivate a problem.
5. An academic talk is about an idea, not a paper.
6. Slides must not overwhelm the viewer.
7. Images and diagrams are better than text.
8. Math's benefit must outweigh the loss of attention.
9. Style matters.
10. Questions are not random.

I've since found these insights and more in Even a Geek Can Speak. It's a short afternoon read. Anyone that does technical speaking should have it. [More detail on the blog]

Oral Presentation Advice (Mark D. Hill)
http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~markhill/conference-talk.html

Things to Think About

1. Oral Communication is different from written communication

Listeners have one chance to hear your talk and can't "re-read" when they get confused. In many situations, they have or will hear several talks on the same day. Being clear is particularly important if the audience can't ask questions during the talk. There are two well-know ways to communicate your points effectively. The first is to K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid). Focus on getting one to three key points across. Think about how much you remember from a talk last week. Second, repeat key insights: tell them what you're going to tell them (Forecast), tell them, and tell them what you told them (Summary).

2. Think about your audience

Most audiences should be addressed in layers: some are experts in your sub-area, some are experts in the general area, and others know little or nothing. Who is most important to you? Can you still leave others with something? For example, pitch the body to experts, but make the forecast and summary accessible to all.

3. Think about your rhetorical goals

For conference talks, for example, I recommend two rhetorical goals: leave your audience with a clear picture of the gist of your contribution, and make them want to read your paper. Your presentation should not replace your paper, but rather whet the audience appetite for it. Thus, it is commonly useful to allude to information in the paper that can't be covered adequately in the presentation. Below I consider goals for academic interview talks and class presentations.

4. Practice in public

It is hard distilling work down to 20 or 30 minutes.

5. Prepare

See David Patterson's How to Give a Bad Talk

Processing in Eclipse

2011-02-11T10:16:00.001-05:00

After having to set up a Processing project in Eclipse after a long break from anything related to it, I decided to capture my notes to refer to later. I added it as a blog post to our lab's new website in hope it could help others, too.

A lot of us in the lab use Processing for a variety of things, such as prototyping game ideas. While the little IDE Processing comes with is ideal for those just getting started with programming, it's a bit too simplistic for many of us. Luckily, it's possible to use all the Processing library has to offer in a regular Java project. Here are my notes on how I set up Eclipse to work with Processing and SVN.

You can read the rest here.

Never heard of Processing? I highly recommend you check it out! As mentioned above, the built-in editor is quite ideal for beginning programmers. If you've ever wanted to create something beautiful with code but didn't know how, download Processing and try some of the tutorials. I bet you'll be surprised with what you can do.

The Beauty of Content and Structure

2011-02-09T11:23:00.001-05:00

I recently created a website for our lab at school: Graphics, Imaging, and Games Lab (GIGL). I found it strangely satisfying, even though I didn't write a single line of code or create a single graphic. Instead, I used Drupal with a pre-made template. I really enjoyed designing how the content would be structured.

simple-drupal-wallpaper-1920-1200-white by matt.farina

The website requirements weren't complicated. We wanted a place to post news and information about our projects and publications. We wanted a central place where we could blog about our research, since some of us had private blogs scattered around the Internet. We would show lab events, member profiles, and even image galleries of our work.

I had a great time designing the content types and how they would relate to each other. For example, a project has related publications, image galleries, and blog posts, so in each of those content types, I added a field that could refer to one or more projects. I used the Views module to display these with the basic project info in a custom way, then created a View field for the project content type. The view would show when the node was displayed and the rest of the fields would be hidden, giving me complete control over how I wanted to format the node.

I'm not sure how to explain it, but designing the content and structure well felt really good. It's the same kind of feeling that I get when I make something more traditionally considered beautiful, like a good photograph or scrapbook page. And I think it's even similar to creating software whose code has a beautiful structure. It really goes to show how design beauty can be achieved in so many different ways.

(Note: Our GIGL website is live, but has a couple of small bugs and is still being populated with information. Feel free to check it out anyway.)