Mark Guzdial

Mark Joseph Guzdial
Born	September 7, 1962(1962-09-07) Detroit, MI, USA
Residence	Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Citizenship	United States
Nationality	American
Fields	Computer Science Education, Learning sciences, Media Computation, CSCL
Institutions	Georgia Tech, GVU Center
Alma mater	University of Michigan, Wayne State University
Doctoral advisor	Elliot Soloway
Known for	Emile, Swiki, Media Computation
Notable awards	ACM Distinguished Lecturer, Vice-Chair of the ACM Education Board Council

Mark Joseph Guzdial (born September 7, 1962) is a Professor in the School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology affiliated with the College of Computing and the GVU Center. He is best known for his research in the fields of computer science education and the learning sciences. From 2001-2003, he was selected to be an ACM Distinguished Lecturer and in 2007 he was appointed Vice-Chair of the ACM Education Board Council. He was the original developer of the CoWeb (or Swiki), one of the earliest wiki engines, which was implemented in Squeak and has been in use at institutions of higher education since 1998.^[1] He is the inventor of the Media Computation approach to learning introductory computing, which uses contextualized computing education to attract and retain students.

Biography

Personal life

Mark Guzdial was born in Michigan. He attended Wayne State University for his undergraduate studies, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science in 1984. He received a master's degree in 1986 in Computer Science and Engineering at Wayne State University. Guzdial went on to receive a Ph.D. at the University of Michigan in 1993 in Computer Science and Education where he was advised by Elliot Soloway. His thesis, “Emile: Software-Realized Scaffolding for Science Learners Programming Multiple Media”, was an environment for high school science learners to program multimedia demonstrations and physics simulations.^[2] Upon graduation from the University of Michigan, Guzdial accepted a position as an assistant professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing. Guzdial was married to Barb Ericson in July 1985. They have three children, Matthew, Katherine, and Jennifer.

Georgia Tech

Guzdial currently directs the Contextualized Support for Learning Lab (CSL), a team of faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students who design and implement innovative technology for the goal of improving learning. Guzdial’s research projects include Media Computation, an approach that emphasizes context in computer science education, using programming languages, lectures examples, and programming assignments from those contexts that students recognize as being authentic and relevant for computing.^{[3] [4][5][6][7]} His Media Computation course has been taught at Georgia Tech since 2003 and has shown increases in computing across underrepresented groups, including women and minorities.^[8][9] Guzdial’s Media Computation curriculum is being used at universities across the country. He received a grant from the National Science Foundation in 2006 to pursue his “Using Media Computation to Attract and Retain Students in Computing” curriculum.^[10]

Guzdial is currently serving as Program Co-Chair of the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE) 2008 Annual Symposium, the largest computing education conference in the world. Guzdial was director of the Director of Undergraduate Programs (including the BS in Computer Science, BS in Computational Media, and Minor in Computer Science) until 2007. He is Lead Principal Investigator on Georgia Computes, a National Science Foundation Broadening Participation in Computing alliance focused on increasing the number and diversity of computing students in the state of Georgia.^[11] He has published dozens of scholarly articles in peer reviewed journals and has given invited presentations at academic conferences such as SIGCSE and ICER. He is a member of numerous academic journals and professional societies, including IEEE, ACM, and AERA.

Selected publications

• Introduction to Computing and Programming with Java: A Multimedia Approach with Barbara Ericson (2006)
• Introduction to Computing and Programming in Python: A Multimedia Approach (2004)
• Squeak: Open Personal Computing and Multimedia with Kim Rose (2001)
• Squeak: Object-Oriented Design with Multimedia Applications (2000)

References

1. ^ Leuf, Bo; Cunningham, Ward (2001). The Wiki Way. Addison-Wesley. 
2. ^ Guzdial, Mark (1993). " Emile: Software-Realized Scaffolding for Science Learners Programming Multiple Media." PhD dissertation, University of Michigan.
3. ^ Barbara Ericson, Mark Guzdial, Maureen Biggers: Improving secondary CS education: progress and problems. SIGCSE 2007: 298-301
4. ^ Guzdial, M. and Tew, A.E., (2006) Imagineering Inauthentic Legitimate Peripheral Participation: An Instructional Design Approach for Motivating Computing Education. Proceedings of the Second International Computing Education Research Workshop, (Canterbury, UK), 51-58.
5. ^ Merrick L. Furst, Charles L. Isbell, Mark Guzdial: ThreadsTM: how to restructure a computer science curriculum for a flat world. SIGCSE 2007: 420-424
6. ^ David Ranum, Bradley Miller, John M. Zelle, Mark Guzdial: Successful approaches to teaching introductory computer science courses with python. SIGCSE 2006: 396-397
7. ^ Forte, Andrea and Mark Guzdial. (2005) "Motivation and Non-Majors in CS1: Identifying Discrete Audiences for Introductory Computer Science" IEEE Transactions on Education. 48(2), 248-253.
8. ^ "Murder, Starvation & Catastrophe What Easter Island Can Teach Us About 21st Century Innovation". BuzzWords (Atlanta Business Magazine). 2007-06-01. http://www.tagonline.org/files/ABMJune_Innovation.pdf. Retrieved 2007-10-11. ^{[dead link]}
9. ^ "Responding to Generation Ys New Way of Learning". BuzzWords (Atlanta Journal-Constitution). 2003-03-12. http://www.cc.gatech.edu/news/responding-to-generation-ys-new-way-of-learning/file. Retrieved 2007-11-12. 
10. ^ Media Computation To Attract & Retain Students — College of Computing
11. ^ Welcome to "Georgia Computes!" — Georgia Computes!

External links

• Mark Guzdial’s Home Page at Georgia Tech
• Contextualized Support for Learning Lab Home Page

Persondata
Name	Guzdial, Mark
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1962-09-07
Place of birth	Detroit, MI, USA
Date of death
Place of death