Education Forum: Animated Textbooks
Rocky Ross · ACM SIGACT News · 1995
A Current ExampleI have used up a good deal of space in this column describing what is currently my favorite topic in computer science theory education--computer science animation.The eventual goal of the work in animation is, of course, to make available to students a multimedia, dynamic learning tool (a dynamic textbook for want of a better term) that is much more effective than the static textbook learning tools available to students today.In the last issue of the News I described the Dynalab project underway at MSU, a software system that represents a foundation for such an effort.Currently Dynalab is focused on program animation, but the eventual goal is to include algorithm animation and concept animation as well.In this column I report on the first example I have seen of an animated textbook of interest to the SIGACT community.It is a CD-ROM version of the by now well-known textbook Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen, Leiserson, and Rivest (CLR).I almost missed this CD title while browsing through an MIT Press catalog recently, but fortunately it caught my eye.An e-mail message to Robert Prior of MIT Press was all it took to obtain a copy for preview in the column; Robert is to be thanked for his particularly helpful efforts in ensuring that I receive any MIT Press book of interest to the SIGACT community promptly for preview.