Computing can have enormous impact on school STEM curricula by bringing to life the bland, abstract, but essential material of algebra books. For instance, algebra sits at the heart of animations, games, and other interactive systems. Yet the the callbacks that characterize the interfaces of these reactive systems fit poorly with the desire to program algebraically. To eliminate this schism between algebra and reactivity, we have developed novel functional designs of “operating system” APIs. In my talk I will present this approach and then explain how to use it to teach middle school students programming with algebra.
Slides:
Slides for this talk are available in a PDF version and in a PPTX version. The PPTX version (Microsoft Powerpoint) contains animations which are flattened in the PDF version.
About the speaker:
Shriram Krishnamurthi is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Brown University. His recent work focuses on language support for interactive software, and on analyses for security policies. He helped birth DrRacket (programming environment), Margrave (access control policy analyzer), FrTime and Flapjax (reactive programming languages), and Continue (conference paper manager), and worked on FASTLINK (genetic linkage analyzer). He is a co-author of How to Design Programs and author of Programming Languages: Application and Interpretation. He coordinates the Program by Design and Bootstrap outreach programs.
Contact information:
Shriram Krishnamurthi
Computer Science Dept
Brown University