The SCSI was created by a team of high school students, encouraged by their adult mentors to stop dreaming about the CS classroom of the future and start building it. We are opensourcing the results so that others can join the movement.
Video background from Eso Observatory.
Programming sharpens students' critical thinking skills and opens doors to other disciplines. Inspired by a project created by a teacher at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA), EcoSystem32 is a web-based game that challenges students to design their own animals and compete with other players to see whose can survive longest.
If your classmates want something more exciting than Rock, Paper, Scissors, try this computational take on ecology: Play Now.
This report responds to concerns from both students and teachers about creating strong CS assessments:
Read the report here: Next Generation Computer Science Assessments.
Many students' first experience with programming is in Java but, as the SCSI discovered, the language can be off-putting to beginners. To students who are still trying to understand what a loop is, the philosophy of object-oriented design is a brand new concept, popular IDEs appear intimidating, and the syntax required just to set up a class can be confusing. Brendan Batliner, one of the first contributers to the SCSI, created the Java Sandbox to solve these problems: providing a simple, more procedural interface for students to play around with elements of Java programming.
See the difference it makes: Download Java Sanbox.
We are looking for students, educators, researchers, and industry experts to help build free tools that will make the experience of studying CS an empowering one for students. Pull requests are welcome to refine both on code and our insights about teaching and learning.
Contribute to the initiative online: GitHub.
Open Student Computer Science Initiative | 2016