Georgia Tech had sponsored many K-12 outreach initiatives before 1990, but it became apparent that there might be advantages to housing those programs under one roof.
In 1990, then-dean of the College of Sciences Robert A Pierotti tasked Carolyn C. Thorsen with building programmatic relationships between the College of Sciences and K-12 schools. The goal was to assist in improving the teaching and understanding of mathematics and the sciences in the schools. Ms. Thorsen had already had related experience working in the College of Engineering with the Atlanta chapter of the SECME program.
The organization she and Dr. Pierotti created was christened the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics and Computing (CEISMC) in 1991. The organization's first staff consisted of just three individuals. The GIFT program began in 1991, and numerous other K-12 outreach programs were added to the CEISMC roster (some transplanted from the College of Engineering) over the years in order to benefit a broad spectrum of Georgia students and educators.
After Dr. Pierotti passed away in 1995, Aaron Bertrand served as interim director of CEISMC until a formal successor could be found. Paul Ohme then helmed CEISMC from 1996 until his retirement in 2008. CEISMC's current director is Richard Millman.
A Selection of Websites Developed in the Past by CEISMC
CEISMC's web-weaving department, founded and managed by Carolyn Cole, witnessed and contributed to the early growth and development of the internet, and during the dot-com boom of the 1990s developed numerous cutting-edge educational websites.
Note: These links will open in a new window. Most of these are hosted on the servers of the organizations for which we originally developed these sites. Consequently CEISMC is no longer responsible for the content contained on these pages.
i-irasshai: a virtual exploration of Japan (1999-2001)
i-irasshai was an interactive web site and CD-ROM designed related to the Emmy award-winning Georgia Public Broadcasting Japanese language instruction TV series "Irasshai."
Irasshai (1996-2001)
The "Irasshai" TV series also had a website directly correlated to its language instruction efforts.
Salsa: Spanish Language Instruction Series (~2001)
CEISMC partnered with GPB to create the first iteration of GPB's "Salsa" website. "Salsa" was a Spanish language instruction series for young children.
Georgia Stories (~1996-2002)
CEISMC also partnered with GPB to create the first iteration of their web tie-in to the "Georgia Stories" Georgia history television series. The original version of the site included an abundance of primary-resource documents from the periods covered in the videos, allowing history students and their teachers to see firsthand how history was reported while that history unfolded.