White House Cites Bootstrap’s Contribution To Advancing CS Education
- Posted by Jesse Polhemus
- on Dec. 23, 2014
Earlier this month, President Obama announced a series of new commitments that will deliver computer science (CS) education to millions of previously unserved K-12 students. In the section of the White House Fact Sheet detailing expansion of CS offerings in New York City, the Office of the Press Secretary mentions Bootstrap, a curriculum and software package that teaches students to program their own videogames using algebraic concepts.
The content-rich project is a group effort by Emmanuel Schanzer and Brown Computer Science (Brown CS) faculty members Kathi Fisler and Shriram Krishnamurthi, building on two decades of work from Brown and other universities.
This recognition comes at the end of a highly successful year for the Bootstrap program, whose recent achievements include workshops in a score of locations from Seattle to Miami, and large-scale deployment in New York City, Chicago, Maryland, and Florida. As the Office of the Press Secretary notes, this is an example of a “dramatic increase in the number of students exposed to computer science”.
Brown CS and Bootstrap are proud to be part of the mosaic of students, teachers, business, and non-profit organizations involved in the ongoing effort to transform computer science education, the tools and technology (in the words of President Obama) “that will change the way we do just about everything”.