Anthony Estey

Assistant Teaching Professor · University of Victoria · aestey@uvic.ca

I am interested in both teaching and research in computer science, with a particular interest in introductory programming, interactive learning environments, and educational data visualization and analytics.

Interests

Teaching

My favourite courses to teach are introductory programming courses. I really believe that some of the skills students develop in these courses will help change our world.

Learning to program is challenging, can be very frustrating at times, but is also extremely rewarding. Many students enter an intro course feeling nervous and unsure of what computer science is all about. Many of the same students leave their first course feeling empowered and hungry to learn more. I find it very rewarding to see students make this transition.

Research

I am interested in introductory computer science education (CS1). In particular, I am interested in exploring how programming practice tools and interactive learning environments can be used to support student learning.

Extra-Curricular

I have played soccer for most of my life. I also enjoy cross-country running -- Victoria has great running trails! With the coronavirus pandemic putting a halt to many organized team sports, I've started rock-climbing and playing disc golf.

Besides emerging technologies within computer science education, I follow feeds related to computer hardware, gaming, cryptocurrency, and some of my favourite authors. I love fantasy books, the Wheel of Time being my favourite series. I follow a number of sports, have been an avid Canucks fan for decades, and am the reigning champion in my Fantasy Football league.

Teaching

Spring 2025

CSC 115: Fundamentals of Programming: II (2 sections)

Fall 2024

CSC 111: Fundamentals of Programming with Engineering Applications (2 sections)

Spring 2024

CSC 106: The Practice of Computer Science
CSC 115: Fundamentals of Programming: II (2 sections)

Summer 2023

CSC 110: Fundamentals of Programming: I
CSC 115: Fundamentals of Programming: II

Spring 2023

CSC 115: Fundamentals of Programming: II (3 sections)

Fall 2022

CSC 115: Fundamentals of Programming: II
CSC 130: World Wide Web and Mobile Applications

Spring 2022

CSC 115: Fundamentals of Programming: II (2 sections)
CSC 130: World Wide Web and Mobile Applications

Fall 2021

CSC 115: Fundamentals of Programming: II
CSC 130: World Wide Web and Mobile Applications

Summer 2021

CSC 225: Algorithms and Data Structures: I

Spring 2021

CSC 110: Fundamentals of Programming: I
CSC 115: Fundamentals of Programming: II (2 sections)

Fall 2020

CSC 106: The Practice of Computer Science
CSC 115: Fundamentals of Programming: II

Summer 2020

CSC 115: Fundamentals of Programming: II
CSC 225: Algorithms and Data Structures: I

Spring 2020

CSC 106: The Practice of Computer Science
CSC 130: World Wide Web and Mobile Applications

Fall 2019

CSC 110: Fundamentals of Programming: I (2 sections)

Students

Graduate

Quinton Yong (co-supervised with Dr. Miguel Nacenta) - Ph.D.

Norman Anderson (co-supervised with Dr. Margaret-Anne Storey) - M.Sc.

Samantha Norrie (co-supervised with Dr. Ulrike Stege) - M.Sc.

Undergraduate

Auri Collings - CSC 499: Honours Seminar and Project (Spring 2025) → Effort Games (Founder)

Abstract: Despite nearly all mobile devices containing hardware for detecting linear acceleration and orientation, applications of these technologies on the web are rarely explored. Largely, this is because while every operating system and browser combination supports reading from these sensors, each of them has differing behaviors and coordinate systems, which makes it very difficult to build and test experiences that are meant to work across a range of devices. Motion sensors have a wide range of application for creating immersive and useful experiences. They can be used to create engaging motion-controlled gameplay, used to track movement for mapping and GPS, or even used for exercise tracking as pedometers or fall-detectors. For this study, I created and published a first-of-its-kind open source library to standardize measuring and processing motion sensor data across every current mobile OS, and I visualized these developments by creating three different applications demonstrating aspects of the sensors' capabilities.

Matthew Trent - CSC 499: Honours Seminar and Project (Summer 2024) → Brown University

Abstract: The most popular search engine today, Google, processes almost 10 billion requests daily. To be specific, that's ~100,000 searches per second. While the service works great, it's centralized. This means at some point in each request's journey it's routed through a Google-controlled computer. This raises concerns relating to user-privacy, monopolistic practices, censorship, and the ability for such a company to unilaterally manipulate search results. My project, Kurlox, fixes these issues. It explores a different kind of search engine architecture: complete decentralization. In this model, the database of websites and the methods to query them are partitioned across n user-run and controlled nodes. Thus, no single entity is responsible — or able — to command complete control of the network.

Sofiia Khutorna - Valerie Kuehne Undergraduate Research Award (Summer 2023)

Abstract: In this research project, we present a novel approach that combines Virtual Reality (VR) with a motion capture (mocap) suit for live dance performances. Leveraging real-time motion capture technology, we can stream precise body movement data to a virtual character and project it behind the dancer in real-time. As a result, we create a captivating blend of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality, producing an animated virtual shadow that follows along with the movements of a dancer as they perform.

Emily Martins - CSC 299: Undergraduate Directed Project (Fall 2022) → AMD

Emily developed a full-stack web application for users to track their physical activity. Prior to starting this project, she had neither front-end experience nor database experience. The project consisted of a React front-end with an Express back-end. The database is a MySQL instance managed my Amazon Relational Database Services (RDS). Her web-app is hosted on a Lightsail instance. Users set a weekly goal of target active minutes and can enter their active minutes for the given week. They will appear on the leaderboard. The leaderboard ranking is sorted based on the percentage of a user's completed goal. Users can also view activity logs of other users! View the app here!

Selected Publications

Estey, A., & Coady, Y. (2017, June). Study Habits, Exam Performance, and Confidence: How Do Workflow Practices and Self-Efficacy Ratings Align? In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (pp. 158-163). ACM.

Estey, A., Keuning, H., & Coady, Y. (2017, March). Automatically classifying students in need of support by detecting changes in programming behaviour. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (pp. 189-194). ACM.

Estey, A., & Coady, Y. (2016, July). Can Interaction Patterns with Supplemental Study Tools Predict Outcomes in CS1? In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (pp. 236-241). ACM.

Estey, A., Kennedy, A. R., & Coady, Y. (2016, May). BitFit: If you build it, they will come! In Proceedings of the 21st Western Canadian Conference on Computing Education (p. 3). ACM.