Taught By:
Ira Greenberg, Center for Creative Computation, Southern Methodist University
Deepak Kumar, Department of Computer Science, Bryn Mawr College
Dianna Xu, Department of Computer Science, Bryn Mawr College

Dates:
January 5-7, 2012 (1/7 is half day will finish at 11:30AM)

Location:
Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX

Cost:
Participant lodging expenses and some travel will be covered. Registration is required. Space is limited, please reserve your space early. Contact Beth Minton at beth@lyle.smu.edu or phone at 214-768-3083 with questions or to sign up for this workshop. This workshop showcases a new approach to teaching CS1 using computational art as a context. Participants will be introduced to the Processing programming language and environment, designed for the construction of 2D and 3D visual forms.

Its IDE is light-weight, but well-suited for the kind of rapid prototyping needed for dynamic visual work. We hope to bring the excitement, creativity, and innovation fostered by Processing into the computer science education community.

Instructors of all experience levels are welcome. Hands-on portion of the workshop will enable participants to explore Processing and create visual effects on the fly. Course materials and handouts detailing the software, curriculum, and teaching resources will be given out. All participants will need to bring their own laptops.

Five pilot courses using this approach have been successfully offered at both Bryn Mawr College and Southern Methodist University (SMU) during the academic year 2010-2011. A shorter workshop was offered at SIGCSE 2011, and we received overwhelmingly positive feedback. Based on past participants suggestions, we will be focusing more on pedagogy when teaching with Processing, what worked during our pilot offerings, and several examples of hands-on computational art.

This project is supported in part by the National Science Fundation awards DUE-0942626 and CCF-0939370 and by Bryn Mawr College and Southern Methodist University.

Workshop Format:
Lecture/Discussion: 9AM - 11:30AM (15 min break at 10AM) Lab (hands-on): 1PM - 5PM (no lab on 1/7)