Who are we?
We are the Grinnell Laboratory for Interactive Multimedia Experimentation and Research, traditionally known as Glimmer Labs. Our current project is MediaScript, an interactive scripting environment.
Where are we from?
Glimmer Labs is part of Grinnell College, a private liberal arts college in Grinnell, IA.
What is Media Scripting?
Media Scripting is an approach to teaching Computer Science that uses functional programming languages to script image-manipulation applications. Right now, a majority of our projects use Scheme and the GNU Image Manipulation Program.
To see Media Scripting in action, visit our Gallery.
What do we do?
At Glimmer Labs, we hope to expand the capabilities and the audience of Media Scripting. Over summer 2011, we added more languages and applications to our current Scheme/Gimp platform. We also added a self-disclosing feature to the Gimp to help introduce code to beginners.
To find out more about our projects, visit our projects page or read our blog.
Who is Media Scripting For?
Media Scripting is intended for anyone familiar with an image-manipulation applications who would like to harness the precision and capabilities of coding in their work. This includes graphic designers and beginning programmers who would gain from an interactive, visual learning environment. For more information on how programming can benefit graphic design, see our welcome page.
We also believe in Media Scripting’s ability to increase interest in the computer science discipline. We would like to introduce our software to middle-school students who are familiar with drawing applications and expose them to programming before they reach college. Media Scripting has already proved successful in Grinnell’s introductory CS class. Since we began teaching with Scheme and the Gimp, we’ve expanded class sizes and attracted more women and minority students to computer science.
