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By Phil Williams
pwilliam@franklin.uga.edu
David Gries has seen the future of college textbooks, and it’s only a click away.
His new text, ProgramLive: A Multimedia Java Learning Resource, has just been published--on CD-ROM.
“When people start to learn a computer language, they almost never read the manuals,” says  Gries, Yamacraw Professor of Computer Science at UGA. “As a result, it takes them forever to master the concepts. Our idea was to put everything they needed on a CD-ROM and get rid of the manual and the book. There’s simply nothing else like this available. ProgramLive has more than 250 recorded lectures, music and animations, making it a true multimedia ‘book.’ We call it a ‘livetext’ because it makes the material come alive.”
UGA students tested the text last spring, and it’s now available nationally and being used by students in the computer science 1301 course at the university. Gries developed the CD-ROM text with his son, Paul, who is in the computer science department at the University of Toronto.
“Computer science enrollments are exploding around the world, especially in the first year of university,” says Paul Gries. “Departments are facing a huge resource crunch--for example, the University of Toronto has about 1,500 students enrolled in the introductory CS course this fall alone. This requires roughly 10-15 instructors. And the student population is going to grow for the next decade or more.
“With ProgramLive, a self-paced course is much more feasible. Students can bring the lectures home with them and view them when they want. Not only will lecture halls be freed up--a boon to the entire university--but lecture time will be saved as well, allowing greater one-on-one contact with the students.”
ProgramLive is filled with bright graphics and animations and dozens of useful links to areas on the CD-ROM and on the Web. In addition to quizzes, homework, projects and labs, ProgramLive has actual lectures that can be read or heard, as the user chooses.
With ProgramLive, students will essentially have a professor in the classroom with them. High school teachers can learn Java from the disk along with their students, rather than having to take crash courses in the summer. There are ready-made assignments and test questions. The teachers also will know which topics universities consider important.
Updates of ProgramLive will be made available once a year. The CD-ROM runs on Windows or Mac platforms. Cost to students, faculty and others involved with education is $50.
“This may not work for all students; many are not self-motivated, and many work and learn best in lecture settings,” says Paul Gries. “But with so many universities experiencing class sizes of 200 or more, a self-paced option will be really attractive.” |
