Michael Kölling is a German computer scientist, currently working at

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV ...

, best known for the development of the BlueJ and

Greenfoot Greenfoot is an integrated development environment using Java (programming language), Java or Stride designed primarily for educational purposes at the Secondary school, high school and Undergraduate education, undergraduate level. It allows easy ...

educational development environments and as author of introductory programming textbooks. In 2013 he received the SIGCSE Award for Outstanding Contribution to Computer Science Education for the development of the BlueJ.

Education and early life

Kölling was born in Bremen, Germany. He earned a degree in

informatics Informatics is the study of computational systems. According to the Association for Computing Machinery, ACM Europe Council and Informatics Europe, informatics is synonymous with computer science and computing as a profession, in which the centra ...

from the

University of Bremen The University of Bremen () is a public university in Bremen, Germany, with approximately 18,400 students from 117 countries. Its 12 faculties offer more than 100 degree programs. The University of Bremen has been among the top 50 European rese ...

. In 1999, he was awarded a Ph.D. in computer science from the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...

, for research on the design of an

object-oriented programming Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of '' objects''. Objects can contain data (called fields, attributes or properties) and have actions they can perform (called procedures or methods and impl ...

environment and language supervised by John Rosenberg.

Career and research

From 1995 to 1997 he worked at the Sydney University, followed by a position as a senior lecturer at

Monash University Monash University () is a public university, public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. Named after World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the ...

and, from 2001, a post as an associate professor at the

University of Southern Denmark The University of Southern Denmark (, SDU) has campuses located in Southern Denmark and on Zealand. It offers a number of joint programmes in co-operation with the University of Flensburg and the University of Kiel. Contacts with regional indu ...

. He worked at the School of Computing at the

University of Kent The University of Kent (formerly the University of Kent at Canterbury, abbreviated as UKC) is a Collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university based in Kent, United Kingdom. The university was granted its roya ...

, UK, until February 2017. He is now a professor of computer science at

, where he also occupies the role of vice-dean for education. Kölling is the lead designer of 'Blue', an object-oriented programming language and integrated environment, BlueJ, and

. All are educational development environments aimed at teaching and learning programming. BlueJ and Greenfoot are widely used in many schools and universities. Kölling co-wrote ''Objects First with Java'' with David J. Barnes, and wrote ''Introduction to Programming with Greenfoot''. At the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional membe ...

(ACM)

Special Interest Group A special interest group (SIG) is a community within a larger organization with a shared interest in advancing a specific area of knowledge, learning or technology where members cooperate to effect or to produce solutions within their particular f ...

(SIG) of

Computer science education Computer science education or computing education is the field of teacher, teaching and learning the discipline of computer science, and computational thinking. The field of computer science education encompasses a wide range of topics, from b ...

(

SIGCSE SIGCSE is the Association for Computing Machinery's (ACM) Special Interest Group (SIG) on Computer Science Education (CSE), which provides a forum for educators to discuss issues related to the development, implementation, and/or evaluation of c ...

) 2010 conference, held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, his work was referenced as one of the most influential tools in the history of computer science education. This paper described Kölling's work on the Blue programming language, which preceded BlueJ.

Microsoft patent issue

On 22 May 2005 Kölling entered the BlueJ website in response to a post on Dan Fernandez's blog (Lead Product Manager – Visual Studio Express). Fernandez described a new feature of Visual Studio 2005 that "helps you understand objects at Design Time, rather than runtime." This feature had striking similarities to how the object test bench functions within BlueJ. Kölling did not act on the discovery. However, on May 11, 2006

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

attempted to patent the idea. As the object test bench is essential to the way it functions, had Microsoft's patent been granted, it was likely that BlueJ would have had to have been discontinued. Kölling spoke to Microsoft, namely Jane Prey, and eventually the patent was dropped. Fernandez posted a response on his blog saying "the patent application was a mistake and one that should not have happened. To fix this, Microsoft will be removing the patent application in question. Our sincere apologies to Michael Kölling and the BlueJ community."

Awards and honours

His awards and honours include: * SIGCSE Test of Time Award 2020. *Elected a

Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

of the

British Computer Society image:Maurice Vincent Wilkes 1980 (3).jpg, Sir Maurice Wilkes served as the first President of BCS in 1957. The British Computer Society (BCS), branded BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, since 2009, is a professional body and a learned ...

(FBCS). * SIGCSE Award for Outstanding Contribution to Computer Science Education 2013. * Appointed a distinguished member of the

(ACM) in 2011. *

National Teaching Fellowship The National Teaching Fellowship Scheme (NTFS) is an award for excellence in teaching in higher education for teaching fellows in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales. The scheme was first administered by the Higher Education Academy, w ...

2008.

Higher Education Academy Advance HE (formerly the Higher Education Academy) is a British charity and professional membership scheme promoting excellence in higher education. It advocates evidence-based teaching methods and awards fellowships as professional recogniti ...

, UK. * Duke's Choice Award 2007 (industry award), category “Java Technology in Education”, 2007. * Australasian Distinguished Dissertation Award, 2000. The Computing Research and Education Association of Australasia. * Victorian

Pearcey Award Trevor Pearcey (5 March 1919 – 27 January 1998) was a British-born Australian scientist, who created CSIRAC, one of the first stored-program electronic computers in the world. Born in Woolwich, London, he graduated from Imperial College in 19 ...

(for his development of BlueJ), 1999.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kolling, Michael Java (programming language) German computer scientists Computer programmers Academics of King's College London Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Professorships at King's College London Computer science educators