Introduction to Computing and Programming in Python, A Multimedia Approach (2nd Edition) [Paperback]

Mark J. Guzdial (Author), Barbara Ericson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 11, 2009 | ISBN-10: 0136060234 | ISBN-13: 978-0136060239 | Edition: 2

For courses in Introduction to Computing or Introduction to Programming.

 

There is a growing interest in computing for non-CS majors, or for students who have not yet determined their majors (sometimes called the “CS0” market). Computer science professors are also confronted with increased attrition and failure rates. Guzdial introduces programming as a way of creating and manipulating media–a context familiar and intriguing to today’s students. Students begin actual programming early on (sometimes over 100 lines of code in the second assignment). Guzdial’s approach has met with substantial success in class testing.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

<>Barbara Ericson is a research scientist and the Director of Computing Outreach for the College of Computing at Georgia Tech. She has been working on improving introductory computing education for over 5 years. She enjoys the diversity of the types of problems she has worked on over the years in computing including computer graphics, artificial intelligence, medicine, and object-oriented programming.

 

Mark Guzdial is a Professor in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech.  An award-winning teacher and active researcher in computing education, he holds a joint Ph.D. In Education and Computer Science from the University of Michigan. Dr. Guzdial directs Project “Georgia Computes!” which is an NSF funded alliance to improve computing education from pre-teen years to undergraduates.  He is a member of the ACM Education Board and is a frequent contributor to the ACM SIGCSE (Computer Science Education) Symposium.

 

Barbara Ericson and Mark Guzdial, are recipients of the 2010 Karl V. Karlstom Outstanding Educator Award for their contributions to broadening participation in computing. They created the Media Computation (MediaComp) approach, which motivates students to write programs that manipulate and create digital media, such as pictures, sounds, and videos. Now in use in nearly 200 schools around the world, this contextualized approach to introductory Computer Science attracts students not motivated by classical algorithmic problems addressed in traditional computer science education. They also lead “Georgia Computes!” an NSF-funded statewide alliance to increase the number and diversity of students in computing education across all of Georgia.  Barbara Ericson directs the Institute for Computing Education at Georgia Tech. Mark Guzdial is director of the Contextualized Support for Learning at Georgia Tech.  Together they have written three textbooks using the MediaComp approach to engage and inspire student learning in computing. The Karlstrom Award recognizes educators who advanced new teaching methodologies; effected new curriculum development in Computer Science and Engineering; or contributed to ACM’s educational mission.

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 2 edition (July 11, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0136060234
• ISBN-13: 978-0136060239
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 0.6 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #165,483 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #91 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Languages & Tools > Python

More About the Author

I started teaching computing in February 1980. I was 17 in my senior year of high school, and I taught "Bits, Bytes, and Basic" in a community education class. I taught through my undergrad years--community education, afterschool classes, GED classes, and even community college in 1984. I read "Personal Dynamic Media" by Adele Goldberg and Alan Kay while on an internship at Bell Labs in 1982. I'd never before thought about computing FOR learning (as opposed to learning ABOUT computing). Adele and Alan's thoughts and words set me on the road to my PhD in Education and Computer Science at the University of Michigan in 1993. Nowadays, I focus on using lessons from learning sciences and educational technology for teaching about computing.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars best python as a first language book so far May 20, 2005

By Michael Tobis

Format:Paperback

This book achieves both of the things you would want a Python as a first language book to do - it engages the beginner with things they might actually want to do, but doesn't fail to introduce the deeper concepts that are needed to come to appreciate the beauty and elegance of Python.

Focusing on computing applications in the arts, this book uses a clever approach to enable the beginner to do really interesting stuff, very quickly. There are things in there that would be of interest to any photographer, not just a software beginner.

Yes, Photoshop is faster and easier, but it hasn't got this level of control! If you ever wanted to write your own Photoshop plugins, this book might be of interest just as an alternative way to get to design your own effects.

The end of the book gets carried away, trying to pack too much in. It tries to explain OOP and Swing, HTML, Javascript and SQL. I think this is too much to get into one book, and if you are working through the text yourself without any mentors you should probably not give yourself too much grief if you don't get all the way through it.

Admittedly, it is also pretty darned expensive.

Otherwise great stuff! This book fills a gaping hole in the Python literature. If you are an intelligent beginner, it is a great place to get started in getting real control over your computer!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars strong image analysis February 9, 2006

By W Boudville HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Guzdial teaches Python from the angle that you want to use it to easily manipulate various types of multimedia files. The files might contain images, sounds, video or even just plain text. This gives some of you extra motivation to learn the material.

Along the way, you can learn how images are encoded in JPG, and how colours are represented, either in RGB or HSB. There is a fair amount of image analysis and modifications that can be easily done in Python. This does not approach the sophistication of what Photoshop provides. But being able to do a lot yourself, instead of invoking canned Photoshop routines, might appeal to you.

Audio manipulation is also covered, though perhaps not as extensively. There are more specialised audio tools available elsewhere, especially for music synthesis.

The discussion of movies is very weak. Due to the complexity of what is required. Here I suggest you turn to what Apple and others offer.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Nice Hands-on Multimedia Book for Learning Python February 19, 2009

By Ed Knorr

Format:Paperback

Not knowing Python, I read the book from cover to cover, doing many of the examples as interactive exercises. The book comes with a CD and includes a bunch of files (.jpg, .wav, .html) to experiment with (same files as the examples in the book). So, right off the bat, the reader is engaged in the material.

The CD that comes with the book runs on any PC and is easy to install and use. Because it's a multimedia-based book and self-study course, you get to do neat things like:

- manipulate images (.jpg files): understand bit representations of colors in a pixel, loop through pixels in an image, change colors in a photo, create a sunset (darken, lighten), convert to grayscale, remove red eye, repair photos, perform mirroring (symmetry in a photo)

- manipulate sounds (.wav files): understand the bit representation of sounds; view signals; change the volume; sample sounds at various rates; create echoes; splice sounds together; and learn a bit about compression, MP3, and MIDI

- manipulate strings and html pages: scrape Web pages for specific data and create your own Web pages based on the data you've pulled from other pages, perform string searches, work with files, deal with lookup tables (dictionaries) to act as primitive databases

- manipulate videos (series of .jpg images): there are tools on the CD that let you create simple animations (including fade outs and chroma key) and see how a stream of images combines to form a simple 3-second video

Overall, it's a great book, and a fun way to learn programming.