Education Papers 2008

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    Computer Graphics Curriculum: a Programming Approach
    (The Eurographics Association, 2008) Sobczyk, Dominique; Touzeau, Marie-Solange; Bourdin, Jean-Jacques; Steve Cunningham and Lars Kjelldahl
    At University Paris 8 the computer science curriculum is focused on programming as a good technique to improve the skills of students and to improve the success of studies. It has been reinforced when France adopted the Bologna requirements. This approach is well adapted to our computer graphics courses. The results of these courses are discussed.
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    eNVyMyCar: a Multi-player Car Racing Game for Teaching Computer Graphics
    (The Eurographics Association, 2008) Ganovelli, Fabio; Corsini, Massimiliano; Steve Cunningham and Lars Kjelldahl
    The development of a computer game is widely used as a means to convey Computer Sciences concepts. There are several reasons for that: it stimulates creativity, it provides an immediate sense of achievement when the code works, it typically covers all the aspects of an introductory course, it is easy to find ideas just looking around. In this paper we present NVMC (eNVy My Car), a framework for collaborative/competitive development of a computer game, and report the experience in using it in two Computer Graphics courses held in the year 2007 by the authors. We developed a multiplayer car racing game where the student is only asked to implement the rendering of the scene, while all the other aspects, communication and synchronization are implemented in the framework and transparent to the developer. The novelty of our framework is that all the clients on-line are able to see the views provided by the other clients, which serves to motivate the students to improve their work by comparing it with the other clients, as a means to pick up ideas from the others and finally to show off with their classmates.
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    Graphics based Computer Adaptive Testing and Beyond
    (The Eurographics Association, 2008) Cheng, Irene; Basu, Anup; Steve Cunningham and Lars Kjelldahl
    Instead of computer games, animations, cartoons, and videos being used only for entertainment by kids, there is now an interest in using graphics for 'innovative testing'. Rather than traditional pen-and-paper tests, audio, video and graphics are being conceived as alternative means for more effective testing in the future. In this paper we review some examples of graphics item types for testing. As well, we outline how games can be used to interactively test concepts; discuss designing chemistry item types with interactive graphics; suggest approaches for automatically adjusting difficulty level in interactive graphics based questions; and propose strategies for giving partial marks for incorrect answers. We study how to test different cognitive skills, such as music, using multimedia interfaces; and also evaluate the effectiveness of our model. A method for estimating difficulty level of a mathematical item type using Item Response Theory (IRT) is discussed. Evaluation of the graphics item types through extensive testing on some students is also described. All of the graphics implementations shown in this report are developed by members of our research group.
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    Computer Graphics: Problem Based Learning and Interactive Embodied Pedagogical Agents
    (The Eurographics Association, 2008) Seron, Francisco; Cerezo, Eva; Baldassarri, Sandra; Steve Cunningham and Lars Kjelldahl
    This paper focuses on the use of new tools in order to improve the learning of Computer Graphics, in particular of some aspects that have been detected as specially difficult by the students. Within this context, this paper explores the union of two areas: the educational strategy named Problem-Based Learning (PBL) and the use of interactive embodied pedagogical agents (IEPAs) for education and training tasks. By combining these ideas, we obtain an interactive learning environment created to improve student's learning capabilities. From the PBL point of view, the real problem proposed to the students consists in the development of their own viewing system. While for introducing IEPAs we've developed a powerful engine, called Maxine, that enables the management of 3D environments with special emphasis in the use of embodied animated agents. The engine, based on open source libraries, allows emotional and multimodal interaction with the user in real-time: via text, voice, images, animation (facial expression, lip-synch, body gestures) and the choice of the answers. By carefully orchestrating both ideas the students are encouraged to care more about their own progress, convey the enthusiasm in the learner for the subject matter and simply make learning more fun. Evaluations already done to the students show promising results.
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    What Can We Gain from Transdisciplinary Visualization Courses?
    (The Eurographics Association, 2008) Chalmers, Panel Chair: Gitta Domik; Panellists: Alan; Domik, Gitta; Fellner, Dieter W.; Rushmeier, Holly; Steve Cunningham and Lars Kjelldahl
    Transdisciplinary education means going even further in the collaboration with other disciplines than multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary education do. Transdisciplinary education attempts to search for new insights and views that emerge by balancing the importance of each participating discipline. Because most visualization problems are posted by disciplines other than Computer Science and because good solutions to visualization problems span knowledge over different disciplines, we often find interest from students outside the CS area in our visualization courses. This panel will discuss transdisciplinary (as well as interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary) visualization courses from four different viewpoints of the four panellists: What do multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary education mean in practical terms for an educator of a visualization course? What benefits does an applied research institute expect from graduates that have experience in interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary versus unidisciplinary collaboration? Will there be enough interest from non-CS students to attend such visualization courses?
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    Teaching Soft-skills: Digital Game Development in a Multi-Discipline Environment
    (The Eurographics Association, 2008) Diefenbach, Paul J.; Steve Cunningham and Lars Kjelldahl
    While academic video game development has garnered widespread publicity due to the size of the industry and the potential impact on faltering Computer Science enrollment, many academic programs fail to address the expansive nature of modern game development. In addition, many game development companies are reluctant to hire recent graduates or co-op or intern students - not because of their technical skills, but rather due to their lack of real-world soft-skills. Most student courses fail to address the complexities, communication, and cooperative skill sets required in today's games, and the role that project management plays in development. This paper addresses the emerging approach that Drexel University is taking through a joint Digital Media/Computer Science partnership that serves as a foundation for university-wide application, and in particular examines the Game Development Workshop sequence of courses.
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    From a Light CG Framework to a strong Cannibal Experience
    (The Eurographics Association, 2008) Boers, Jerke; Dobbe, Jeroen; Huijser, Remco; Bidarra, Rafael; Steve Cunningham and Lars Kjelldahl
    Game development courses are being more and more deployed within computer graphics (CG) curricula. A fundamental element in the pedagogical effectiveness of such courses is the quality of the development framework provided to the students. We discuss the most important challenges faced throughout the years while using, configuring and improving the framework for our games project, and describe the solutions we came up with to resolve those issues. We conclude that a carefully designed development framework, including all underlying technology, course material and quality support, significantly determine the quality of a project-based game development course. In addition, when the teams in such projects have an interdisciplinary character, providing an effective collaboration environment is crucial for the success of team members. We believe that the key to the huge success of our games project lies, to a great extent, in the deployment of a professional working environment specifically crafted for an educational setting.